Slow mSATA Raid 0 on Sager NP8230

I had the motherboard swapped to the revision with the mSATA fix. I threw two 256gb Plextor M5M's in a Raid 0 and the benchmark numbers aren't much higher than an individual mSATA SSD at about 500 MB/s read, 500 MB/s write. I've seen people with the same drives in similar laptops with almost twice those numbers. I verified TRIM is on. I updated to the latest Intel RST drivers. I've reinstalled so many times. What else is there to do?

 

I'd check they are running in sata III mode.

 

Also, what bios are you on?

I think one of the last few changed some of the SATA connections to type=ssd and this may improve performance. FWIW Sager is behind on bios releases because they have to wait for Clevo to modify them to Sager branded ones :/

 

I'm on this BIOS the machine came with. It's 1.00.07RNS1 and EC is 1.00.05. But I haven't seen anyone with problems like this with these drive on these models.

I think it is. CrystalDiskInfo says Sata/600. I think it'd be much lower if it wasn't running Sata III anyway.

 

Started all over again and reinstalled Windows 7. Right now with no drivers or anything installed. I don't think Intel RST is even installed unless it came with Windows 7. And the speeds are where they should be at around 1000 mb/s read and 800mb/s write according to atto benchmark. I guess I'll install things slowly.

 

And all of a sudden it's down to 500/500 again. I can't figure this out.

Edit: Reinstalled YET AGAIN. And now the speeds are still low. Something's definitely either wrong with the board or the drives. It's not driver-related at all. This is such bs. I should get what I pay for.

 

SATA II = 250-270 each drive = 500-540 total.

Since that is the cap SATA II would put on that's what makes me so suspicious.

 

I see. The longer my machine is on, the slower it gets for some reason. It starts out fine. But it inevitably slows down to 500/500. I think you might be right. What should I do?

 

I would try updating the bios.

 

I checked Intel RST and it does say that the mSATA on Port 4 is slowing down to SATA II. Which one is port 4?

Edit: I'm guessing Port 4 was the problematic port on previous motherboard revisions. But I've already RMA'd this and requested the swap to 3.5A, which I'm hoping they did. Though, I don't know how to confirm this as anyone can just slap a 3.5A sticker on a board.

 

Also, to piggyback off of what "Black Dog" said in the other thread, I can confirm that there might be some kind of power issue in that 2nd mSATA slot? When I pull out the 750GB 7200RPM hard drive, both mSATA slots can operate just fine at Sata III (6 Gb/s). And when I put the hard drive back in, it's still fine for a little bit, until I actually use the drive. After I run a benchmark for the hard drive, the Port 4 mSATA drops to SATA II (3Gb/s). I emailed Sager about a BIOS update, but I don't know if that'll even do anything. I don't think Clevo completely fixed the mSATA issue even with the latest revision (3.5A?). Hopefully others with these machines can chime in. Only a few of us seem to even be using that 2nd mSATA.

EDIT: The drop to SATA II doesn't always happen immediately. Does feel a little random.

 

Don't think it's a sticker. If I remember right it's printed on the board itself by the CPU where the memory would be (might have to remove them to see). I was the original person to share that 3.5 claimed to have the fix.

That said, I doubt it's a power issue. Power wouldn't cause it to dip down to lower speed as they basically use the same power. It could be bios bug, driver issue or simply hardware still. The original issue was device dropout. Maybe that fixed with 3.5 but they introduced slower speed as side effect.

Until others chime in won't know. It seems clevo QC has dropped over the years on some things...

I think bios 1.00.07RNS1 is latest Sager has at the moment also. A newer Clevo one is out but Sager gets them delayed due to Clevo having to re-brand and modify them. .07 was the one that included the Type = SSD changes on the last two ports which should be those.

 

Yeah this is the same issue I was having. Port 4 drops from sata 2 to 3 when another 2.5" drive is installed and used. Doesn't happen right away. RST reports it as sata3 and then all of a sudden it drops to sata 2 and the only thing that will get it back is to uninstall the 2.5" drives. I tried moving the 2.5 drive to see if it was linked to only 1 of those ports or only when both were used, but it didn't matter. As long as one 2.5 was installed in either port, the speed drop would happen. Oddly, I had 2 Samsung PM841s installed when I bought the machine, and the issue didn't appear to happen. They weren't in a RAID array, but I installed my other hdds as soon as I got the machine and I benched the PM841s a few times and I never detected the issue. I don't know why that would be, but it was only when I tried to put the M5M in port 4 that I detected problems.

 

BTW, if anyone's still wondering the new Sager BIOS along with the most recent Intel Raid drivers fixed this for me. I reinstalled everything to make sure. Also, you have to turn off Link Power Management in RST. I'm not 100% sure if the new drivers/BIOS fixed it or just turning off LPM. But I read that LPM is known to be buggy.

 

What bios ver?

 

Using 09. It still reverts to SATA II though if I turn on LPM. Can't remember if I tried turning it off on the previous BIOS so I can't say for sure if it wouldn't work. But for the 09 version, turning LPM off fixes this.

 

Well LPM does have the capability of dropping the link speed to save power, interesting to hear that it's just cutting to II permanently though.

 

this not good

 

Well the write speed is normal for a pair of 128GB drives, the read speed is a bit slow and does look like SATA II.

 

hello, thank you, from what you can 'depend on this bad result? I tried to reinstall the s.o. and the motherboard was also replaced
this raid0 on two plextor m5m 128gb Msata channel


different is the result of the SATA channels with the two samsung


Clevo P170 SM , I7 4900 MQ , Gtx 780M@950mhz , 16gb CL9, SSD 2X Msata Raid 0 plextor m5m 128 Gb , ssd samsung 840pro 256 Gb X 2, Auo 17.3" v4 90% glare, Cm NotePal U3, Winzozz 8.1 64 Pro

 

What size are the samsung drives? The plextors don't seem to get on well with the clevos at the moment.

 

I originally had a problem Msata channels on the motherboard
it leaked a channel Msata, replaced after clearly see the 2 channels but performance is below expectations.
plextor models are among the most 'recommended by the supplier clevo


my ssd on 1 and 2 channel sata is samsung 840pro 256 Gb

 

Turn off LPM and shut down for 10 seconds. Then reboot.

 

Turn off LPM ?

 

Link Power Management in RST

 

executed, nothing new
poor performance on raid 0

is a problem of ssd plextor ..or windows 8.1 ..
first time , on windows 7, not have this problem

 

This is the problem ..




is problem on mobo ..

 

I dont think it would be the hard drive since the Samsung worked fine.

If I'm reading your screen shots right you have 2x128GB in RAID 0 then have that partition into your E: and F: drives. Your E: drive shows its a 3Gb/s and your F: shows 6Gb/s and the speeds are posting accordingly. Intel rapid storage is showing them as RAID 0 so you should be getting double that speed.

I noticed you're also using CrystalDisk now instead of AS SSD Benchmark you used before. What happens when you use AS SSD now? I have had times when CrystalDisk would show low but another benchmark would show correctly. Try ATTO Disk Benchmark too, its my personal favorite Disk Benchmark | ATTO

 

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Maybe a firmware update will help. I see you're on 1.03 and 1.04 is available Downloads - Firmware

 

There's nothing to really analyze. It's the same problematic Port 4. It's a problem on every Clevo model in the P1XXSM-series. Few people are using it, that's why the problem doesn't seem widespread. But I'm pretty sure it's a problem on every model. What I did was updated my SSD firmware, updated to the most recent Sager BIOS, updated all my drivers, and turned off LPM. After turning off LPM, you have to leave the machine off for a while with the adapter unplugged to let it reset. Under certain circumstances, at least for me, Port 4 will inevitably revert to SATA II for some unknown reason. I don't think it's a Plextor problem to be quite honest. If I had other mSATA drives I would test it. But I'm confident the port is not 100% functional as a SATA III port whether it be due to power issues or what have you. That's my own personal take, I've said it many times.

 

Thats right I forgot about that on the 8230, the 8235 has the fix.

 

hello guys, thanks the replies .. I have a clevo model 170 sm, (sager 8290)and it was already changed once the motherboard.(for loses one msata channel) I updated the firmware of my plextor m5m128 but the result is null. benchmarks are low and a channel Msata loses speed 'inexplicably .. ok fine but at least do not have to give a chance' to sell the two disks for a raid on Msata
I am very disappointed and I'll take action, do not be spending money unnecessarily

 

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