SATA III Port - How Do I Know Which One To Use?

[FHRob]

I'm trying to ascertain which input on the motherboard should be used to connect an SSD. This is the disk controller information I found, using SiSoftware Sandra:

Disk Controller
Model : Dell Panther Point 6 port SATA AHCI Controller
OEM Device Name : Intel Panther Point 6 port SATA AHCI Controller
Interface : SATA
Revision : A5
Specification : 1.10
Maximum SATA Mode : G3 / SATA600
Channels : 4
In Use Channels : 4, 100%
Port : G3 / SATA600
Port : G1 / SATA150
Port : G2 / SATA300
Port : G2 / SATA300

How do I know which port is G3? Also, how do I know which port is G1, which appears to SATA 1?

Thanks,

Rob

[trev123]

Motherboard manual or check in your bios.

[Ericmopar]

I'm curious, are there 4 things pluged into those SATA ports?
It says Maximum SATA Mode G3, which should be SATA III. The other ports may be running slower because slower drives or devices might be plugged into them.(IE older SATA II devices)
In any case, if you're installing the OS on the new SSD, then it should be whatever port the manual says to use for the C: / OS drive. Usually that's SATA port 0 or 1.
If it's a drive strictly for the games and data, then it can go on any SATA port controlled by the Intel chipset. The intel chipset will find it and adjust automatically to the device's speed.

[FHRob]

I'm curious, are there 4 things pluged into those SATA ports?
It says Maximum SATA Mode G3, which should be SATA III. The other ports may be running slower because slower drives or devices might be plugged into them.(IE older SATA II devices)
In any case, if you're installing the OS on the new SSD, then it should be whatever port the manual says to use for the C: / OS drive. Usually that's SATA port 0 or 1.
If it's a drive strictly for the games and data, then it can go on any SATA port controlled by the Intel chipset. The intel chipset will find it and adjust automatically to the device's speed.

Eric:

Okay - that's it.

Here's what I have plugged into the SATA ports:

Seagate Barracuda 1 TB - boot drive and programs other than games. I have this partitioned into C:, D: recovery drive, and G: Data Drive.

Western Digital WD Blue 1 TB - backup drive. This is the device showing SATA 3 capability.

Western Digital Velociraptor - 500 GB game drive, including TS2015 and Run 8

Philips DVD +-RW - this must be the SATA 1 device.

I bought the SSD for the train simulator programs. I know there's a good chance of getting the same results as with the Velociraptor, but that's OK. I was an early adopter of SSD technology, and want to give it another shot. I had a Kingston SSD that stopped working just when I needed the computer for my work. Personally, I wouldn't recommend an SSD for use other than as a boot and gaming drive.

Question - If I use the fourth SATA input for the SSD, where would I plug the DVD into? Do I need a PCI controller card?


Rob

[Ericmopar]

I'm guessing you would need a add in SATA card, if you only have 4 SATA ports.
I've never needed to consider that, because my Mobo has something like 4 - 6 native Intel SATA ports and 4 more Asmedia SATA ports.
It's either that or return the SSD and get one that plugs directly into a PCIE slot. Those PCIE SSDs are still expensive though.

I found this.

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id- ... board.html

Here you go, a 2TB PCIE SSD for only $28,000

https://www.google.com/shopping/product ... NMGEPMCMAE

[FHRob]

I installed the new SSD, and was able to copy my 75.7 GB Steam installation from the Velociraptor to the SSD in 45 minutes. Is that good?

Then, I did a computer overview using SiSoftware Sandra. Apparently, only Sata Port 0 is SATA600.

I have a SATA 2 Seagate Barracuda as the boot drive, on Port 0. If I'm correct, the boot drive is determined in the bios by indicating, by drive name, the boot order. Therefore, if I connect the SSD to Port 0, and indicate in the bios the Barracuda as the boot drive, all should be good.

Let me know if I'm correct here.

Rob

[Ericmopar]

Well...
I stick to the mobo makers suggestion about where to put the boot drive.
Your copy time is a bit slow but that's understandable, since the HDD read and write speeds are the weak link.
I have three SSDs and a external HDD for backup and the write speeds between the SSDs is much faster than writing to or reading from the Western Digital Pasport HDD.
Things might be slow if you have indexing turned off.
Always turn on the page file.
If you have some extra room on the new SSD, put the page file on it. It will greatly speed up program response time.
Many programs need a page file so don't turn that off, even if you think you have plenty of RAM.
Even Microsoft has come out and stated that the Page File is needed.
The drives should have Write Caching turned on, but not "Write Cache Buffer Flushing" That can be found in the Device manager for each drive's properties. It's under the policies tab.

Most motherboards have more than one SATA III port. Are you sure Sandra isn't simply detecting a slow ports do to a slow device/s plugged into it?

Your CPU will also determine how fast the SDD will operate.

There are a lot of variables here when talking setup and specs.

[FHRob]

Regarding the page file, should this be turned on for each drive? Right now, I have system managed page files for the C: drive and the SSD.

I researched the SATA III issue, and found the following concerning the Inspiron 660:

http://en.community.dell.com/support-fo ... 0#20360350

Apparently, only SATA Port 0 supports SATA600. What a bummer.

It's interesting about which port to use for the boot drive. So people say as you do, use the manufacturer recommendation. Other people say use any port, it doesn't matter.

I changed the SSD to SATA Port 0, and now SiSoftware Sandra has the SSD as SATA600. I didn't need to change anything in the bios; the computer booted fine.

Rob

[Ericmopar]

No you only need one page file and that should go onto the fastest drive. I was using a small extra SSD for my page file and couldn't believe how fast my Windows 7 install was after it learned where I moved the page file to and cached commonly used programs. My PC was much snappier even though I was using a WD Blue as my OS drive then.

Just set it for system managed.

That's a bummer about the SATA ports. You must have an older Motherboard and CPU.

[peterhayes]

Eric
I hate to disagree with you wrt the paging file.
If the OP sets it to "system managed" he's likely to end up with a PF of around 8- 16GB taking up valuable and unnecessary disk space.
With increasing amounts of RAM (and if you don't need the Windows log file covering BSODS) the PF should be set (min and max) to the peak commit charge, which can be seen via the Task Manager or other sysinternals apps).
My PF is now down to 2048MB on a SSD (for Windows essential services) and that works without a hitch.
The days of large PF's have long gone - they were useful in the days of 512MB to 1GB onboard RAM.
Read Mark Russinovich of Sysinternals and Microsoft fame to see what he says about the myths about Paging Files aka Virtual Memory

How Big Should I Make the Paging File?
Perhaps one of the most commonly asked questions related to virtual memory is, how big should I make the paging file? There’s no end of ridiculous advice out on the web and in the newsstand magazines that cover Windows, and even Microsoft has published misleading recommendations. Almost all the suggestions are based on multiplying RAM size by some factor, with common values being 1.2, 1.5 and 2. Now that you understand the role that the paging file plays in defining a system’s commit limit and how processes contribute to the commit charge, you’re well positioned to see how useless such formulas truly are.

You’ll notice that the default configuration is for Windows to automatically manage the page file size. When that option is set on Windows XP and Server 2003, Windows creates a single paging file that’s minimum size is 1.5 times RAM if RAM is less than 1GB, and RAM if it's greater than 1GB, and that has a maximum size that's three times RAM. On Windows Vista and Server 2008, the minimum is intended to be large enough to hold a kernel-memory crash dump and is RAM plus 300MB or 1GB, whichever is larger. The maximum is either three times the size of RAM or 4GB, whichever is larger. That explains why the peak commit on my 8GB 64-bit system that’s visible in one of the screenshots is 32GB. I guess whoever wrote that code got their guidance from one of those magazines I mentioned!

Regards
pH

[Ericmopar]

Rob, how much RAM does your Inspiron have and what CPU?

And what operating system?

Are you using on board GPU or maybe a small aftermarket GPU. This I ask because of needed onboard video memory allocations.

[FHRob]

Rob, how much RAM does your Inspiron have and what CPU?

And what operating system?

Are you using on board GPU or maybe a small aftermarket GPU. This I ask because of needed onboard video memory allocations.

Eric:

Here's the specs:

Ram - 8 GB DDR3-1600

CPU - Core i3-3240 Ivy Bridge

O/S - Win 7 64 Bit

GPU - EVGA 750TI 2 GB GDDR5 128 Bit Memory Interface

Rob

[Ericmopar]

Okay.
Here's the thing Rob. I recommend setting a single paging file to be on the same partition as the Operating System and I still say system managed. Under the Let Windows Decide check-box it will only use as much HDD or SSD space as needed. The paging file on Windows 7 and up doesn't use an unnecessary amount of disk space anymore unless programs being use actually need it.

Alternately:
If you have the space, I'd put a 1024MB (1GB) page file on the operating system partition for crash dumps and other windows features, and a fixed, manually set page file on another drive at about 6144MB (6GB) or the second page file can simply be set to Let Windows Decide.
Weather it's a HDD or SSD, windows will more efficiently use the main page file on the separate drive. You should always keep a smallish 1GB page file on the same partition as the operating system for certain things windows does, even if the main page file is on another drive.

There are still a lot of programs around that need a page file, even if there is a lot of RAM on a PC. Some security and other programs also use it.

When I put a fixed 2GB page file on my system it would lock up every few days. When I set it to take care of itself or to a larger fixed 8GB page file, my system runs glass smooth.
I have a GTX780, i53570K at 4ghz, and 8GB of 1600 RAM.

That business of the page file being huge is old school and goes from Vista backwords in MS operating systems.