Does OCZ SSDs works well with marvell sata3 controllers?

[Falgu]

I really wanted to confirm it as soon as possible because just because of this I am unable to buy a OCZ SSD. I have planned to buy this SSD from past one month. But recently last week when I went to purchase it I was told by the retailer OCZ drives have some problem with the marvell controllers and therefore they do not work well along with each other. But I already have one OCZ vertex 3 SDD which I bought to raid 0 it on the intel ich 10 ports but however I do not want to give up by hearing that my motherboard doesn’t not supports Sata 3 SSD drive. I hope it does supports and he person who told me about this is wrong. Is there anyone who has the exact proper information about the SSD and the controller and also can help me out in clearing my doubt?

[Amadou]

For your kind information let me tell you that there are huge numbers of people who are using OCZ vertex on their Garbage Marvell 9128 controller. But the one who is smart enough is using the Ich10r or the Intel chipset SATA 3 controller and somehow getting higher speeds. Everyone gets a manual along with their respective motherboard, hope even you have got one with yours. If have then check out what your motherboard says, it actually states that SATA3 RAID 0 4x and SATA3 2x performance are maximum theoretical values. The actual performance any be varying as according to the system configuration. Also you can find that SATA3 SSDs are actually not recommended for getting used in RAID 0 modes on Marvell SE9128 ports.

Better Make yourself clear with the thing that its nowhere mentioned over there that OCZ SSD are not recommended, in fact it says SATA 3 is not recommended in Raid 0. Also your motherboard clearly mentioned that support for SATA 3 Raid but however don’t use SATA 3 raid 0.

[Dabert]

Same news has been feed into my ears too by my common retailer. I went to the store in order to return my OCZ vertex 3 just because they do not function in Raid 0 on my gigabyte x58A UD3r motherboard. There was a guy who told me that OCZ SSDs maybe having some issue with the marvell controllers but intel SSDs surely works well and fine on the same controller. i really wanted to test them to make out the reality but I don’t have that much of time to do so. Is there anyone who tested a pair of intel SSD on the SATA 3 ports that probably have a marvell 9128 controller. And also on a motherboard like gigabyte x58A ud3r or something similar to it. I am really worried about it and I don’t want to waste my SSD after I make the purchase so please help me out.

[Gameli]

Yeah I have tested them, and let me tell you that your motherboard supports SATA 3 perfectly but only on marvell controller. This marvell controller is very much limited to one PCIe lane and that’s the reason Gigabyte have specified the fact that marvell controller does not support the SATA 3 drives in Raid 0, its been clearly mentioned in their product sheet. Hopefully if you get time please have a look into the sheet and get confirmed. You can check out the details and other related information by getting into gigabyte’s official site. If ever you will check the site make sure that you visit the section called “SATA 6 Gbps Support” in the notes, over there you will find a line which states SATA3 SSDs are not recommended for use in RAID 0 mode on Marvell SE9128 ports. I personally feel that Marvell Controllers was only added for the performance and not for performance or something. Its better that you take back your motherboard and get another one that has a native SATA 3 support. The marvel ports will be very much fine in raid with SATA3 HDD drives but only with max 400 reads speed and max 250 write speed when its in the raid mode.

[Bhumi]

I have recently purchased a 120GB OCZ Vertex 3 max IOPS and I somehow wanted to install it into my system and also wanted to install a fresh copy of windows 7 64 bit and some of the other programs. Let me tell you that I already existing 7200rpm 1TB Samsung Spinpoint which is going to be used as my Data Drive. But now I think I have encountered a BIOS corruption as I am now not able to do any kind of update using either @BIOS or QFlash. The update fails just because I get that message. I was suggested that once if I do a fresh install of the OS my issue will be resolved. Anyways my motherboard i.e. GA-x58A-UD3R has two SATA 3 6/Gbps connectors but workable with only Marvell Controller. I just wanted to know whether it is possible for me to hang out my new OCZ SSD to Marvell Controller 6/Gbs as I already said that my second hard is existing but its only for DATA purpose and also I don’t have a raid setup. Other than this I only have two DVD to hook up so please suggest me or advice me with some best get thing working with SATA for the current existing motherboard before I go on to install windows or any other programs.

[Dannai7]

I am sure that a single SSD would simply work great on the Marvell Controller and the intel ports for your can be a better option. A good average and low transfer rate and also low latency will somehow give you a better experience. Look if you have a clear CMOS then undoubtedly any of the Bios related issue would be fixed unless and until you have a bad chip. As already mentioned above better you first refer your motherboard manual, over there inside the manual you will be told about flashing and how to reload the shipped version that is actually contained on your motherboard cd. Just let me know whether you are try to attempt to flash your BIOS with the flash drive and also if possible let me know what error message exactly you are getting.

[Bhumi]

Thanks for your valuable attention and suggestion. Let me tell you that I somehow managed to upgrade my BIOS to the newer version using a QFlash but I was supposed to keep the file under 2mb as it was mentioned that QFlash does not keep files that are bigger than 1 mb. I went up from FB to FF however I think FH is the newest version and is more than over 2 mb in size. And don’t know why for what reason this @BIOS is restricting itself from loading onto my system. So therefore I guess any of the SATA port from 0 to 9 by ich10r would be preferable for my system.

[JErastus]

If you are able to install the Marvell drive then you can surely change the option in order to make the device remove from the device manager. You need to simply get into the Device Manger options, from there get into the Storage Controllers and at last come at Drive properties section. And if you are scared of doing it or if for any reason you do not want to do it just make sure that you never try to remove or touch those devices while you are booting especially the boot drive. And if the boot drive is shown as any removable windows then simply do not make any attempts to remove it when you choose that option. If still any issues then better you consult your motherboard manual. Over there the intel ich10r in its normal config is supporting some 6 ports that you are willing to keep at the first position.