Marvell 91xx slow disk write

macnab · 22 Nov 2018

Gigabyte B75M-D3H motherboard
Windows 10 1803

Accessing the disks works fine.
But writing is at USB 2 speeds.

In Device Manager -> System Devices it is listed as Marvell 91xx Config Device.
The driver is latest (checked various ways.)

In Device Manager - Storage Controllers it is not listed.
DriverFinder shows it as not having a driver.

The Marvell Tray Utility seems to be happy with everything.

Just very slow write speed.

I have seen other post in the forum showing it as listed under Storage Controllers, so I was wondering ...

macnab · 22 Nov 2018

Too late to edit the post.

The card is supposedly Marvell 91xx, (that is what is listed under System Devices, and the Driver Provider is Marvell Semiconductors)) the but on the box it says Sunix SATA 2600L.

The entry Storage Controllers is in Device Manager - Microsoft Storage Space Controller is listed there, just not the Marvel Card.

I have done some tests:
If I move files between one of these drives and a drive mounted on the motherboard, using Teracopy because it gives a progress display), the transfer stutters. Teracopy seems to stop for seconds at a time, although Resource Monitor shows that read/writes are still occurring, albeit at varying speeds. This applies in both directions.

If I move files between 2 drives mounted on the motherboard, file transfer flows smoothly, both in Teracopy and Resource Manager. Hardly any fluctuation in read/write speed.

Moving files between the two drives mounted on the Marvell card shows the same stuttering effect.

Looking at Queue Length in Resource Manager, it seems that the destination drive has a buffer which fills up.
And I also see that moving the files back to the original drive is blindingly fast. Looks as though it is one of the drives which is the problem. Identical drives.

Will need to do more investigating.

macnab · 22 Nov 2018

In IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers I have two entries:
Intel(R) 7 Series/C216 ...
Standard SATA AHCI ...
Both use the driver in System32 folder - storahci.sys

EDIT: All 6 HDDs are listed in Disk Drives.
All 6 disks use the same 3 drivers.

Caledon Ken · 22 Nov 2018

That explains why we don't see the Intel under Storage controllers. I wonder if the BIOS is seeing things correctly.

When I plug a card in a MB I always reload the defaults and go from there.

I'll google that card. In the machine I'm on right now I added a similar card only made by Vantec.

macnab · 22 Nov 2018

I have run a disk benchmark app on all the drives.
The drives on the motherboard test as expected.
Regarding the 2 drives on this card - they are identical 2TB Seagate drives. One averages 80 MB/s read/write, the other 125 MB/s. Swapped them around on the card, the results move with the drives.

So one of them seems to be a bit unhappy.
They have very similar SMART figures.

Ran defrag on them, while watching in task manager. The fast drive has constant data transfer. The slow drive runs in fits and starts. I have physical copies of all my drives. Will put the spare in for that drive and see what happens.

EDIT: Replaced the drive with the backup. Everything now fine. (Except I need a new backup.)
And it doesn't seem to matter that the Marvell card is not listed under Storage Controllers.