devnulllore Posted June 22, 2019 Share Posted June 22, 2019 This is kind of a long question and I am not sure how to ask so bear with me. I have an ASus Sabertooth Z77 MB on it are 2 SATA controllers one Intel Z77 and one Asmedia 106x. The Intel has 6 channels 2 Sata III 6g and 4 Sata III 3g Then the Asmedia has 2 Sata III 6g's. My question is about SSD positioning. I have 2 SSD's on the Intel 6g channels and a WD Black on an Intel 3g channel. I plan to convert to all SSD's and wonder if I should put the new one(s) on the Asmedia 6G or on the Intel 3G. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindovermaster Global Moderator Posted June 22, 2019 Global Moderator Share Posted June 22, 2019 If you are using your new SSD as a storage drive, 3g channel should be fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
devnulllore Posted June 22, 2019 Author Share Posted June 22, 2019 (edited) 5 minutes ago, Mindovermaster said: If you are using your new SSD as a storage drive, 3g channel should be fine. One will be for games so I will need the best speed out of it. I am just not sure how reliable Asmedia is over intel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindovermaster Global Moderator Posted June 22, 2019 Global Moderator Share Posted June 22, 2019 1 minute ago, devnulllore said: One will be for games so I will need the best speed out of it. I am just not sure how reliable Asmedia is SATA is SATA to me. I know 6G will be faster than 3G. What are you using your current 2 SSD's for? You have them in RAID? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
devnulllore Posted June 22, 2019 Author Share Posted June 22, 2019 Just now, Mindovermaster said: SATA is SATA to me. I know 6G will be faster than 3G. What are you using your current 2 SSD's for? You have them in RAID? Drive 1 is my OS and apps, 2 is games and I am adding 2 more for additional gaming as it's cheaper in the short run than upgrading my current ones. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindovermaster Global Moderator Posted June 22, 2019 Global Moderator Share Posted June 22, 2019 1 minute ago, devnulllore said: Drive 1 is my OS and apps, 2 is games and I am adding 2 more for additional gaming as it's cheaper in the short run than upgrading my current ones. Well, as you only have 2x 6g ports, you can put your OS drive on 3g. Put your new game discs on 6g. Being a SSD, you really won't feel the added speed of 3g/6g. I mean, the SSD is already fast with read/write speeds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
devnulllore Posted June 22, 2019 Author Share Posted June 22, 2019 4 minutes ago, Mindovermaster said: Well, as you only have 2x 6g ports, you can put your OS drive on 3g. Put your new game discs on 6g. Being a SSD, you really won't feel the added speed of 3g/6g. I mean, the SSD is already fast with read/write speeds. Well as I mentioned there are actually 4 6g ports but 2 intel and 2 asmedia. I was wondering if it's better to use the remaining Intel ports over the asmedia ones even though they are 3g. I guess the only way to tell is to swap them around and test them. How reliable is Asmedia? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindovermaster Global Moderator Posted June 22, 2019 Global Moderator Share Posted June 22, 2019 2 minutes ago, devnulllore said: Well as I mentioned there are actually 4 6g ports but 2 intel and 2 asmedia. I was wondering if it's better to use the remaining Intel ports over the asmedia ones even though they are 3g. I guess the only way to tell is to swap them around and test them. How reliable is Asmedia? Like I said, SATA is SATA. I know I had 2 different ones on my old motherboard. I never thought twice about it. Just plug it in, it works, really. Like you said, just move them around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim K Global Moderator Posted June 22, 2019 Global Moderator Share Posted June 22, 2019 (edited) So ... just for you (since I have the same board) ... I ran benchmarks with one of my gaming drives ... the 850 EVO ... The Intel 6G The Intel 3G The Asmedia "6G" So...same drive on the three different types of SATA ports on our Sabertooth Z77. Edit: I have my 850 Evo and 850 Pro on the two Intel 6Gs. I have 2 optical drives and a WD Black on the 3Gs and my older OCZ Vertex 4 on the Asmedia "6G". I haven't had issues with the Asmedia. Edited June 22, 2019 by Jim K Other info farmeunit and DevTech 2 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
farmeunit Posted June 22, 2019 Share Posted June 22, 2019 (edited) For games, the speed difference is typically negligible. Even HDD to SSD isn't exactly a huge difference when it comes to games. I've got a a 970 EVO Plus that is has 3,200 read speeds and when loading Rainbow Six, it's not exactly night and day between my old HDD or my FireCuda HDD with SSD cache. Faster, yes. Hugely, no. Not like the different it makes with the OS and stuff. You will likely see a difference if you time it, just don't expect a huge one between 3g vs 6G. Edited June 22, 2019 by farmeunit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DevTech Posted June 22, 2019 Share Posted June 22, 2019 4 hours ago, devnulllore said: This is kind of a long question and I am not sure how to ask so bear with me. I have an ASus Sabertooth Z77 MB on it are 2 SATA controllers one Intel Z77 and one Asmedia 106x. The Intel has 6 channels 2 Sata III 6g and 4 Sata III 3g Then the Asmedia has 2 Sata III 6g's. My question is about SSD positioning. I have 2 SSD's on the Intel 6g channels and a WD Black on an Intel 3g channel. I plan to convert to all SSD's and wonder if I should put the new one(s) on the Asmedia 6G or on the Intel 3G. 1. Always prefer Intel 2. Your best SSD expansion option is to plug a NVMe card into your PCIe bus (faster, better investment) A) If using a single GPU card, you can plug a DUAL M.2 NVMe card into the second GPU slot B) If both GPUs are being used, you have a third PCIe x 16 slot that runs at x4 - prefect for a single NVMe drive card (Note running this slot at x4 will disable the other PCIe x1 slots on the mobo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
devnulllore Posted June 23, 2019 Author Share Posted June 23, 2019 From several hours of research last night I think I am going to abandon the Asmedia ports and use only the Intel. It has been reported for years that Asmedia have very bad architecture and driver compatibility with Windows 10. any test have revealed throughput drops sharply when migrating from the Intel to Asmedia. It seems Asus only puts the Asmedia controller on there simply to support more drives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim K Global Moderator Posted June 23, 2019 Global Moderator Share Posted June 23, 2019 11 minutes ago, devnulllore said: From several hours of research last night I think I am going to abandon the Asmedia ports and use only the Intel. It has been reported for years that Asmedia have very bad architecture and driver compatibility with Windows 10. any test have revealed throughput drops sharply when migrating from the Intel to Asmedia. It seems Asus only puts the Asmedia controller on there simply to support more drives. I will say from my personal experience with the same board as you ... I've never had an issue with the Asmedia ports. While they are not as fast the Intel 6G ports ... they are faster than the 3G Intel ports (not sure you'd be able to tell in the real world sans benchmarks). So really ... Intel 6G > Asmedia > Intel 3G Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
devnulllore Posted June 23, 2019 Author Share Posted June 23, 2019 (edited) 15 minutes ago, Jim K said: I will say from my personal experience with the same board as you ... I've never had an issue with the Asmedia ports. While they are not as fast the Intel 6G ports ... they are faster than the 3G Intel ports (not sure you'd be able to tell in the real world sans benchmarks). Yes I am also looking at compatibility. There was recently a major Windows 10 driver update for the Asmedia 106X which made MANY systems unbootable. Reinstalls were warranted and no amount of speed can justify me having to reinstall from scratch. Even though several of the test rigs I read about had hard backups it's hard to keep track of which and when controller drivers are updated. I also considered the fact that these are SSD's and the overall performance may be negligible during normal use. maybe show a few points above in tests. Just for curiosity's sake I will do some tests once I get the SSD's to test with. Plus with every prop Intel gets there is a hand full of these: CLICK I realize this is a few years old but this one smack of the general feeling of all of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim K Global Moderator Posted June 23, 2019 Global Moderator Share Posted June 23, 2019 3 minutes ago, devnulllore said: Yes I am also looking at compatibility. There was recently a major Windows 10 driver update for the Asmedia 106X which made MANY systems unbootable. Reinstalls were warranted and no amount of speed can justify me having to reinstall from scratch. Even though several of the test rigs I read about had hard backups it's hard to keep track of which and when controller drivers are updated. I also considered the fact that these are SSD's and the overall performance may be negligible during normal use. maybe show a few points above in tests. Just for curiosity's sake I will do some tests once I get the SSD's to test with. eh ... the last 1903 Windows update did nothing to break my system. Not sure why anyone would be using the Asmedia as their boot drive SATA hookup (vs. the Intel 6G). So, I'm not sure where you're getting your information ... but as I said ... I've never had an issue related to the Asmedia. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
devnulllore Posted June 23, 2019 Author Share Posted June 23, 2019 There is a lot of good information here on Neowin as well as Anandtech and other very reputable site. I've trusted Neowin and the others I use highly and have never had a problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DevTech Posted June 23, 2019 Share Posted June 23, 2019 3 hours ago, devnulllore said: Yes I am also looking at compatibility. There was recently a major Windows 10 driver update for the Asmedia 106X which made MANY systems unbootable. Reinstalls were warranted and no amount of speed can justify me having to reinstall from scratch. Even though several of the test rigs I read about had hard backups it's hard to keep track of which and when controller drivers are updated. I also considered the fact that these are SSD's and the overall performance may be negligible during normal use. maybe show a few points above in tests. Just for curiosity's sake I will do some tests once I get the SSD's to test with. Plus with every prop Intel gets there is a hand full of these: CLICK I realize this is a few years old but this one smack of the general feeling of all of them. Seriously consider a NVMe drive if you are concerned about performance. No drivers needed, just raw performance. And at least 5 times faster than SSD, so you don't need a benchmark to feel the difference. You notice it right away. The farmeunit guy does not notice much of a difference, so of course it depends on your computer and specific mix of software, but if you are not bottlenecked, then 5 X will be noticed... And when you eventually upgrade your mobo, just take the NVMe drives from the expansion card and plug them into the mobo - so future proof as well... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goretsky Supervisor Posted June 24, 2019 Supervisor Share Posted June 24, 2019 Hello, The Intel SATA rev 3.0 (6.0 Gbit/s) ports are going to be the fastest ones, as they are built right into the Intel Z77 Express chipset. The ASMedia 106x SATA controller is presumably connected to the Z77 chipset via one of its eight PCIe 2.0 x1 lane connections, which have a maximum transfer speed of 5.0 Gbit/s (that's unidirectional, so 5.0 Gbit/s transfers in each direction). So, if you put multiple SATA SSDs onto the ASMedia 106x SATA controller and have them all doing at the same time, you are likely to see a bottleneck and the drives will not be read from or get written to at their full speed. However, outside of running something heavily I/O dependent like a database (or benchmarking software) across the SSDs I doubt there would be much, if any, noticeable impact in the real world. The one thing I really would consider, though, is whether you really want to spend the money on upgrading the system's storage, or if it would make sense to purchase a newer motherboard, CPU and RAM. The Z77 chipset dates back to 2012, so we are talking about a system which is about seven years old and is missing newer technologies that you might want to take advantage of, such as PCIe 3.0, USB 3.1, the option to boot from NVMe SSDs and so forth. If the system is meeting all of your needs, than by all means stay with it and upgrade the parts you need, but you might want to start thinking about at what point you are going to need to upgrade it in order to make use of new software or hardware that it is not compatible with, or because some irreparable hardware component has failed. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
devnulllore Posted June 24, 2019 Author Share Posted June 24, 2019 Thank You that's good information my friend. I have decided to not use the Asmedia ports and just put the 2 older SSD's on the Intel for storage of all my backups. I like to keep my backups separate so I have my WD Black for all my music, pics and videos and the 2 older SSD's for my Acronis backups. goretsky 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
devnulllore Posted June 24, 2019 Author Share Posted June 24, 2019 20 hours ago, DevTech said: Seriously consider a NVMe drive if you are concerned about performance. No drivers needed, just raw performance. And at least 5 times faster than SSD, so you don't need a benchmark to feel the difference. You notice it right away. The farmeunit guy does not notice much of a difference, so of course it depends on your computer and specific mix of software, but if you are not bottlenecked, then 5 X will be noticed... And when you eventually upgrade your mobo, just take the NVMe drives from the expansion card and plug them into the mobo - so future proof as well... So on a side note I want to get an NVMe drive for my OS can you recommend one and some information on what I need to install? I have dual EVGA video cards and cannot tell without removing them what I have for slots. Someone else here has the same board maybe they can give me some info for the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindovermaster Global Moderator Posted June 24, 2019 Global Moderator Share Posted June 24, 2019 41 minutes ago, devnulllore said: So on a side note I want to get an NVMe drive for my OS can you recommend one and some information on what I need to install Get the Samsung 970 EVO NVMe. Or something similar. Install M2 is just like installing a SSD. Put it in, load up Windows, and go on your way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
devnulllore Posted June 24, 2019 Author Share Posted June 24, 2019 34 minutes ago, Mindovermaster said: Get the Samsung 970 EVO NVMe. Or something similar. Install M2 is just like installing a SSD. Put it in, load up Windows, and go on your way. Just not too familiar, at least at this point, what I have for slots. It's been 5 years since I installed anything on the motherboard which was 2 EVGA TI Boosts. I guess I have to look at my manual again. That's why I was wondering if someone with the same board, the Sabertooth Z77 can give me some insight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindovermaster Global Moderator Posted June 24, 2019 Global Moderator Share Posted June 24, 2019 (edited) 15 minutes ago, devnulllore said: Just not too familiar, at least at this point, what I have for slots. It's been 5 years since I installed anything on the motherboard which was 2 EVGA TI Boosts. I guess I have to look at my manual again. That's why I was wondering if someone with the same board, the Sabertooth Z77 can give me some insight. Well, it looks like your board has 3x PCI-e slots, and 3x PCI-e X slots. But, like goretsky said, your system is quite old. I'd upgrade that board/CPU/RAM rather than buying a M.2... goretsky 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
devnulllore Posted June 24, 2019 Author Share Posted June 24, 2019 (edited) Ahh so I have 3 slots for one of those cards. I can't get to the ones between or below the video cards so I will have to use the top one. Those are compatible? Edited June 24, 2019 by devnulllore Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindovermaster Global Moderator Posted June 24, 2019 Global Moderator Share Posted June 24, 2019 9 minutes ago, devnulllore said: Ahh so I have 3 slots for one of those cards. I can't get to the one between or below the video cards so I will have to use the top on. Those are compatible? Being your board is from 2012, I don't think it's BIOS/UEFI can take m.2 drives. The latest BIOS update was on 2013/09/16. Saw no support for it. So, it "might" work? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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