Solved SSD Upgrade questions

[essenbe]

There is a difference, but I doubt you will notice it one way or the other. If we can assume (which I'm pretty sure is true) tha Nvidia chipsets do not have AHCI, but you have 1 port with AHCI enabled and have an AHCI driver, it should be safe to assume you have an AHCI driver for that port. In this case it is Microsoft's, which is not that bad. I would assume that the port is specified in your manual for your motherboard and that there is a driver for it on your motherboard's web site. But, it is not that important as you already have one.

 

[Victek]

There is a difference, but I doubt you will notice it one way or the other. If we can assume (which I'm pretty sure is true) tha Nvidia chipsets do not have AHCI, but you have 1 port with AHCI enabled and have an AHCI driver, it should be safe to assume you have an AHCI driver for that port. In this case it is Microsoft's, which is not that bad. I would assume that the port is specified in your manual for your motherboard and that there is a driver for it on your motherboard's web site. But, it is not that important as you already have one.

Thanks for the reply. It seems that for now the Microsoft driver is my only option. I've checked the EVGA website and the motherboard manual and there is no information about the extra SATA header. There is only the JMicron SATA Enable/Disable option in the BIOS. It's odd that the SSD is now detected as an ATA device with a Quick Remove Vs Performance option in the Device Manager. When the SSD was connected to one of the other SATA headers and used the Nvstor64 driver it was listed as a SCSI device with support for command queuing. Does that seem odd to you?

 

[essenbe]

Not really. Nvidia chipsets have no AHCI, but where you have it now does. 'Hot Plugging' is one of the features of AHCI which you didn't have before. There are a few others too. You will never use the hot plugging on your OS drive for obvious reasons, but that is one of the attributes of AHCI. So, it is not surprising. Quite frankly, I don't know much about the Nvidia chipsets other than what I've read on them. But, they are somewhat different than other chipsets which are usually either Intel or AMD. But, they do act different than most any other chipset.

 

[Britton30]

Stick with the msahci driver, it is slightly better. It's the msahci that causes it to be recognized and a ATA device, but nothing to worry about.
When I had a Crucial SSD it was recognized as SCSI too, but with my Samsung 840 Pro it's a standard hard drive.

 

[Victek]

Stick with the msahci driver, it is slightly better. It's the msahci that causes it to be recognized and a ATA device, but nothing to worry about.
When I had a Crucial SSD it was recognized as SCSI too, but with my Samsung 840 Pro it's a standard hard drive.

Great! Thanks to you and everyone who replied

 

[Victek]

Not really. Nvidia chipsets have no AHCI, but where you have it now does. 'Hot Plugging' is one of the features of AHCI which you didn't have before. There are a few others too. You will never use the hot plugging on your OS drive for obvious reasons, but that is one of the attributes of AHCI. So, it is not surprising. Quite frankly, I don't know much about the Nvidia chipsets other than what I've read on them. But, they are somewhat different than other chipsets which are usually either Intel or AMD. But, they do act different than most any other chipset.

You may find it interesting that I noticed during POST that the embedded JMicron SATA controller is actually using the PCIe bus and is treated as external. That would explain the "hot plugging" option in the Device Manager.

 

[essenbe]

I didn't know about it using the PCIe bus, but I suspected it would be for an external drive. But, it really does not matter except if the JMicron controller does not give you problems, you may get some decent speed out of it, and as long as your board can boot from a PCIe bus, you can use is as an internal drive

 

[clsiii]

Victek,

I have the same motherboard and chipset. I recently bought a Samsung 850 EVO SSD and in doing some research before installing it came to find out that the 790i Ultra SLI does not have SATA 6.0/Gbs capability (which I was aware of prior to purchase), but also doesn't have AHCI... I knew that I would be limited to SATA 3.0/Gbs in using this SSD, but was completely unaware that I wouldn't have the ability to place it in AHCI mode.

What has been your experience using the Jmicron? Have you tried using the SSD in IDE mode? Thanks in advance.

 

[essenbe]

See post #1 in this Tutorial http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/61869-ahci-enable-windows-7-vista.html

 

[clsiii]

Thanks essenbe. I'm aware of the process and instructions provided in the link you provided with respect to nForce boards like mine:

... nForce boards do not support AHCI (with the exception of nForce boards that include onboard graphic cards), and also don't send the TRIM command for SSDs. It can do NCQ through its controller though. The JMicron SATA ports do support AHCI, but you'd get worse performance running a HDD through these, than on the normal SATA ports.

You can uninstall the Nvidia controller though in Device Manager and install Microsoft's IDE Controller, which can send TRIM commands for SSDs.

Head to Device Manager (Open Start menu, type Device Manager), and click "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers", and you will see 3 Nvidia Serial ATA Controllers. Right click one of them and click "Properties" and go to the "Driver" tab. Click "Update Driver". Click "Browse my Computer", and then "Let me pick". You will see the option to choose "Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller". Click this and click "Next" and let it install.

Do the same for the other two Nvidia Controllers in Device Manager and restart your system. After the controllers have installed, you will be asked to reboot again.

SSDs will now have a slight performance boost with the TRIM command, and also regular HDDs also have a slight increase as well.​

The reason for my original question was to see if Victek (or others) had had better experience using the Jmicron or some other workaround. I've read the odd post saying that it increased performance slightly. Thanks.

 

[Victek]

Victek,

I have the same motherboard and chipset. I recently bought a Samsung 850 EVO SSD and in doing some research before installing it came to find out that the 790i Ultra SLI does not have SATA 6.0/Gbs capability (which I was aware of prior to purchase), but also doesn't have AHCI... I knew that I would be limited to SATA 3.0/Gbs in using this SSD, but was completely unaware that I wouldn't have the ability to place it in AHCI mode.

What has been your experience using the Jmicron? Have you tried using the SSD in IDE mode? Thanks in advance.

It's been a while, but IIRC the Jmicron embedded controller worked OK. It didn't make a difference performance wise though. What I wound up doing was installing a PCIe SATA 6 controller card. That improved the "numbers" noticeably, but again I didn't perceive a big difference. Here's a link to the message I posted with my test results using the PCIe controller.

http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware...a-post2817427.html?highlight=pcie#post2817427

The controller was inexpensive, so if you have a free slot it might be worth it, but as others have pointed out part of the performance boost of SSDs comes from the dramatically reduced seek times, and you get that regardless.

 

[clsiii]

Thanks very much for the info! Which controller card did you get, if I may ask? Thanks!

 

[Victek]

Thanks very much for the info! Which controller card did you get, if I may ask? Thanks!

I got this card:

SYBA SY-PEX40039 Controller Card - Newegg.com

 

[clsiii]

Thank you. I'm a bit of a noobie. Would you be able to tell me how you went about setting up your SSD on it and booting from it? Which drivers did you use and where (if you can remember) did you get them (website, CD?)? Does using the card allow you to operate your SSD in AHCI mode?

In a separate but related note, I was debating whether to go with the controller you used SYBA SY-PEX40039 PCI-Express 2.0 SATA III (6.0Gb/s) Controller Card or this one SYBA Combo USB 3.0 + SATA III 6Gbps, v2.0 PCI Express, x4 Slot Controller Card Model SD-PEX50055. I only have 1 free PCI-e V 2.0 slot free. I do have other PCI-e slots available but they are all V 1.1. I have an external hard drive that I use (and expect to continue using) as storage for all my music, pictures, movies, documents, etc.) that's USB 3.0 capable. Right now all my USB ports are 2.0 and I'd obviously like to be able to access the external HDD and read & write to it as fast as possible, so the combo option is enticing. Unfortunately, given the reviews of the combo card, I'm worried about the reliability and effectiveness of that option... Alternatively, if I buy 2 separate cards- 1 for SATA III for my SSD and 1 for USB 3.0, I'd have to put 1 of those in a PCI-e 1.1 slot. If I went that route, I was leaning towards putting the USB 3.0 in the V 1.1 slot, and putting the SATA III card in the V 2.0 slot so my SSD could run as fast as possible, (as that's a priority over access and reading & writing speeds on my external HDD). Thoughts?

 

[Layback Bear]

Unrelated to your thread but I did notice this in your specs.

Antivirus Avast Free Antivirus , Microsoft Security Essentials
Browser Chrome

It is not wise to run two antivirus programs on the same computer at the same time.

 

[Victek]

Thank you. I'm a bit of a noobie. Would you be able to tell me how you went about setting up your SSD on it and booting from it? Which drivers did you use and where (if you can remember) did you get them (website, CD?)? Does using the card allow you to operate your SSD in AHCI mode?

It's been a while and I'm not remembering all of the details. After installing the PCIe SATA 6 controller I would connect the SSD and boot into the BIOS. Make sure booting from an external device is enabled (you might want to make it the second device with CD/DVD as the first boot device). The card comes with a driver on a mini-CD so put it in the drive. I don't remember if it "just worked" or if I had to boot the Windows 7 DVD and do a Start Up Repair (search the forum threads for more info). According to the card's specs AHCI is supported.

In a separate but related note, I was debating whether to go with the controller you used SYBA SY-PEX40039 PCI-Express 2.0 SATA III (6.0Gb/s) Controller Card or this one SYBA Combo USB 3.0 + SATA III 6Gbps, v2.0 PCI Express, x4 Slot Controller Card Model SD-PEX50055. I only have 1 free PCI-e V 2.0 slot free. I do have other PCI-e slots available but they are all V 1.1.

I understand that you're trying to get optimal performance from all of the devices. You might want to try the combo card for the USB 3.0 support, but I wouldn't use a PCIe v1 slot for either device. If the combo card doesn't work well enough I would go with the dedicated PCIe SATA 6 controller in the v2 PCIe slot and just plug the external hard drive into a USB 2.0 port.

Hope this helps

 

[clsiii]

I went ahead and ordered the combo card. Hopefully I wont into too many issues trying to get it installed. Thanks very much for your advice.