Crucial M4 with SATA3 controller on P6X58D-E

[jonathan_phang]

Righty-o,

new system to be built soon, so thinking about jumping onto the SSD bandwagon (and this means trying to learn a whole new load of terms etc), especially as the Crucial M4 can be had for about £120 now.

The motherboard that I have is an Asus P6X58D-E, and the SataIII 6GB ports are handled using a Marvell 9128 chip. Now, I'm trying research all I can, but I've come across a lot of forum posts that say that its going to perform poorly etc and that TRIM commands (Still learning about that too!) arent passed on.

Now, I will carry on learning more, but does anyone have any thoughts on this? Should I still buy the SSD, or is there something fundamentaly wrong with this controller. I've read things about using default drivers, Marvel drivers, using the SataII ports which are intel.

So confusing, but the upshot is that I dont want to buy something that is going to cause more trouble than its worth in the new build. And dont even get me started on 4k alignment and TRIM... so many questions - will save them for another post!

Thanks for helping a SSD noob
JP

[Terbinator]

I don't see why TRIM wouldn't work on a 3rd party controller (it is down to OS and drive support only AFAIK), indeed, I've never seen anyone mention it before.

As for performance, i know at one point various 3rd party speeds were't that great but i imagine with the latest drivers for your controller it would be worthwhile going with the Marvell over the Intel one.

[jonathan_phang]

I don't see why TRIM wouldn't work on a 3rd party controller (it is down to OS and drive support only AFAIK), indeed, I've never seen anyone mention it before.

As for performance, i know at one point various 3rd party speeds were't that great but i imagine with the latest drivers for your controller it would be worthwhile going with the Marvell over the Intel one.

I'm only going by what I have seen - and taken greatly with a pinch of salt, which is why I thought I would ask for some real opinions by people who generally know what they are talking about

I'm sure that I'm being over cautious, but better to ask. And I guess even with relatively 'bad' SSD performance, its still going to be night and day compared to my Samsung F1 mechanical drive. And I believe drive alignment is sorted out with a brand new install of W7...

Any more for any more?

[Agent]

edit - ignore.

[jonathan_phang]

Thanks for that Agent. TRIM isnt top of my priorities in terms of SSD, just wanting to make sure that I dont end up with really bad performance through that controller in combination with the M4. Though worst case, I could always use the SataII ports, which use the Intel controller.

[Agent]

Thanks for that Agent. TRIM isnt top of my priorities in terms of SSD, just wanting to make sure that I dont end up with really bad performance through that controller in combination with the M4. Though worst case, I could always use the SataII ports, which use the Intel controller.

I just realised I made a small mistake, I'm at work right now but I'll expand on what I said later

[Sputnik]

There was a thread on here about a year ago maybe where someone had bought a SATA3 PCI card and found they got better performance from the onboard SATA2 ports. I can't remember the exact details though.