Ahci

No update because I haven't gotten the driver installed, or working, nor have I reverted back. Still scratching my head.

For reasons unknownst to me, the transfer speed seems to have picked up some, so I'm not as concerned about it as I was previously. Of course, that is subject to change.

Before transferring the image to the current drive, transfer speed was usually initially ~ 100 MB/s and would drop as the transfer proceeded to ~60MB/s. When I posted this question, the initial transfer speed topped out at ~25MB/s and dropped from there. Now, I'm getting an initial top speed of ~ 60MB/s dropping off. However, the rates are not absolutely constant, and one transfer does better than another.

I'm glad that you mentioned the Marvell drivers again, because that caused me to take another look, and I noticed that the one currently available is a newer version than the one I had installed. When I uninstalled the old one to prepare for the new, it required a reboot, and upon reaching desktop, Windows installed it's own driver, instead of waiting for me. It too required a reboot, after which I checked in the Device Manager, and the first controller in the IDE ATA/ATAPI section is now labeled "Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial ATA Controller", similar to the fashion that your's is listed.

Since the old Marvel driver didn't seem to work properly, I'm reluctant to now install the new one, unless I find that the Windows driver has problems. Therefore, at this time, I consider the problem solved. Thanks for the help.

I just tested it by simultaneously transferring 5 video files from the AHCI drive, to my external video drive, and it topped out @ 113MB/s, then transferred the same files back to where they came from, and the transfer speed showed 210 MB/s. That is better than it was before.

Oops! Something that I had missed. Looking at the storage controllers in the Device manager, it now only show the Silicon Image controller, not the Marvell. I kind of understand, except that I find it strange that the AHCI drive works at all, because it is connected to SATA slots apart from all of the rest, and is on the backside of the MB, and is supposed to be controlled by the Marvell controller.

EDIT: Another thing different, is that previously there were 3 Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE controllers, 3 ATA channel 0 devices and 3 ATA channel 1 devices. Instead of changing one of them as I had thought, there are now 4 of each of those devices listed.

I will admit that I can easily get confused with all these chips and drivers, but what confuses me most right now, is that the drive connnected to the Marvell slots is working with the Silicon Image controller. At least, I'm assuming that is so, since it seems to be the only possibility, since neither the Marvell or AMD drivers are installed. Yes, I am considering installing the new version of the Marvell driver, but considering how well things are working right now, I'm not in any hurry. I'll at least wait until I'm in the right frame of mind.