VOGONS


First post, by KCompRoom2000

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Hello, I've been thinking about getting a solid state drive for my AMD K8 rig (link to build log thread).

Since the ASUS A8V motherboard's integrated VIA SATA controller is limited to SATA1 drives (I once tried to plug in a jumperless Hitachi Deskstar 160GB drive that was set to SATA2 mode, and the system froze at the SATA detection screen as soon as the drive list popped up if memory serves correctly), I was wondering if they make SATA solid state drives with the mode compatibility jumper intact, if that's out of the question, are there other ways to force a SATA2/3 drive to run at SATA1 mode so the integrated SATA controller won't complain about the drive being in SATA2/3 mode? if so, does anyone know which SSDs support this feature?

If native SATA SSDs aren't an option for this build, I'll be willing to settle for a regular SATA hard drive.

Thanks.

Reply 1 of 13, by The Serpent Rider

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Or you can just skip buggy VIA SATA and use third-party controller.

I must be some kind of standard: the anonymous gangbanger of the 21st century.

Reply 2 of 13, by darry

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Or try an older E-SATA enclosure with a SATA to E-SATA adapter .

Why doesn't this exist?

The Amazon link in this post now points towards a different product .

The initial product review is as follows :
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/customer-reviews/ … ASIN=B00P1S5IWG

Reply 4 of 13, by cyclone3d

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From experience, SSDs usually just work on SATA 1. I haven't had any problems with putting SSDs on SATA 1 controllers.

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Reply 5 of 13, by NJRoadfan

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cyclone3d wrote:

From experience, SSDs usually just work on SATA 1. I haven't had any problems with putting SSDs on SATA 1 controllers.

Which SATA1 controller? Intel ICH5 southbridge provided ports on i865 chipset boards are the most compatible and usually work without any drama. VIA SATA1 controllers were notoriously buggy, Silicon Image (Si311x?) wasn't much better.

Reply 6 of 13, by cyclone3d

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Intel (onboard), Promise PCI , and Silicon Image PCI (Promise is better of course). I don't think I have tried a Via PCI card yet although I do have 1 or 2 laying around.

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Reply 7 of 13, by KCompRoom2000

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cyclone3d wrote:

From experience, SSDs usually just work on SATA 1. I haven't had any problems with putting SSDs on SATA 1 controllers.
..
I don't think I have tried a Via PCI card yet although I do have 1 or 2 laying around.

All right, once you get around to testing your SSDs on one of your VIA PCI controllers, post the results here so I know if there are any catches I have to keep in mind.

The Serpent Rider wrote:

Or you can just skip buggy VIA SATA and use third-party controller.

That's kinda what I want to avoid since I'd be wasting the integrated SATA slots if I resort to that method. 😐

ynari wrote:

Use an IDE to SATA converter? True, it is slower, but it should be more compatible.

I'll accept that as a last resort, theoretically, SATA-150 isn't much different than ATA-133 in terms of speeds (the VIA southbridge support ATA-133, BTW) so it's not that slower. However, I'd need to grab a few SATA power adapters since my power supply has only three molex connectors which are all used up.

Reply 8 of 13, by cyclone3d

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KCompRoom2000 wrote:
All right, once you get around to testing your SSDs on one of your VIA PCI controllers, post the results here so I know if there […]
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cyclone3d wrote:

From experience, SSDs usually just work on SATA 1. I haven't had any problems with putting SSDs on SATA 1 controllers.
..
I don't think I have tried a Via PCI card yet although I do have 1 or 2 laying around.

All right, once you get around to testing your SSDs on one of your VIA PCI controllers, post the results here so I know if there are any catches I have to keep in mind.

The Serpent Rider wrote:

Or you can just skip buggy VIA SATA and use third-party controller.

That's kinda what I want to avoid since I'd be wasting the integrated SATA slots if I resort to that method. 😐

ynari wrote:

Use an IDE to SATA converter? True, it is slower, but it should be more compatible.

I'll accept that as a last resort, theoretically, SATA-150 isn't much different than ATA-133 in terms of speeds (the VIA southbridge support ATA-133, BTW) so it's not that slower. However, I'd need to grab a few SATA power adapters since my power supply has only three molex connectors which are all used up.

Over PCI, you aren't really going to get any more than 133MB/s on a SATA controller anyway.

The SATA drive to IDE controller adapters I have take molex power.. cheap from China ones. You would just need some molex splitter cables to add more drives.

I've got to test some cards now, so I'll go ahead and pop in a VIA SATA 1 controller and see what happens. I'll check and see if I have any via based motherboards with SATA 1 as well.. might as well test the whole shebang in one go, right?

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Reply 9 of 13, by cyclone3d

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Did a bit of testing.

Motherboard:
ECS Photon Extreme KV2 Lite 1.0

Chipset - Via KT800 Pro

SATA - sucks. Either sticks on POST screen (a few different SSDs - SATA II and SATA III), and HDDs/SSHDDs that were SATA II) or doesn't see the drive at all if I set the controller to RAID mode.

PCI Via SATA RAID controller - just doesn't see the SATAII or SATA III drives.

PCI SIL3512 SATA RAID controller - saw everything I threw at it. HDD, SSHDD, SSD - performance is reportedly slower than a Promise controller.

Didn't test a Promise controller as the couple I have are already in systems and I know they work just fine with everything.

For Windows 9x, you will want a PCI SATA 1 controller since there are no SATA II PCI controllers I could find that have Win9x drivers.

As for SATA I SSDs.. the really old ones should be SATA I. I have an old 32GB SSD installed in one system. Pretty sure it is SATA I. Not pulling it apart to check though.

Yamaha modified setupds and drivers
Yamaha XG repository
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Aopen AW744L II SB-LINK

Reply 10 of 13, by dr_st

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cyclone3d wrote:

From experience, SSDs usually just work on SATA 1. I haven't had any problems with putting SSDs on SATA 1 controllers.

Everything just works on SATA 1. It seems the problem is limited only to the buggy early VIA SATA controllers.

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Reply 11 of 13, by KCompRoom2000

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All right, thank you all for posting, I'll just stick to regular SATA hard drives with the compatibility jumper for the time being (I still have a few of those left to spare), if it gets to the point where SSDs are the only option, I'll consider using a SATA-to-IDE adapter unless a drive that happens to support speed limiting turns up. I was really hoping there would be a utility that forces newer SATA2-3 drives to SATA1 mode at a firmware level just like the Hitachi Feature Tool except for non-Hitachi hard/solid-state drives.

dr_st wrote:
cyclone3d wrote:

From experience, SSDs usually just work on SATA 1. I haven't had any problems with putting SSDs on SATA 1 controllers.

Everything just works on SATA 1. It seems the problem is limited only to the buggy early VIA SATA controllers.

The buggy VIA SATA chipsets were designed before SATA2 was released, so it wasn't like they knew this would happen, only time could tell whether or not SATA1 controllers supported SATA2-3 disks. 😜

Reply 12 of 13, by Kamerat

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This one. I got the 64GB model and it's actually a PATA SSD with a Marvell 88SA8040 PATA to SATA bridge on the PCB just like the first SATA HDDs.

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Reply 13 of 13, by Radical Vision

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All modern and older sata 2 devices are compatible with sata 1. Only problem can be some old sata 1 controllers are crap and will not work properly, but most of them will be ok..

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