I'm getting different SSD speed from different sata port

[lansing]

I'm using the MSI x570 A-Pro motherboard and I just installed a brand new WD blue 1TB ssd. The ssd spec is 560MB/s read and 530MB/s write. But on my benchmark, I'm getting sub-par speed at 360MB - 406MB. At first I thought that the drive was faulty. But then when I connected the drive to another sata port, I'm getting the advertised speed. See the red cable in the image.

 

connecting to the bottom sata port give me slow speed

 

 

connecting to the top port became normal again

 

What is the problem?

[SpaceGhostC2C]

Those two ports are potentially on different controllers, check your motherboard's manual for details.

 

Other than that, a) it could be a failing port, although b) it isn't that big of a difference. Last time I had a dying port, the difference was something like 100 MB/s vs 500 MB/s...

[lansing]

4 hours ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

Those two ports are potentially on different controllers, check your motherboard's manual for details.

 

Other than that, a) it could be a failing port, although b) it isn't that big of a difference. Last time I had a dying port, the difference was something like 100 MB/s vs 500 MB/s...

The manual said that sata1 and sata2 ports are from ASMedia ASM1061, and sata3 - sata6 are from AMD x570 chipset. A google search said that the ASMedia one sucks, why would MSI cheap it out like that?

[lansing]

14 minutes ago, yaboistar said:

because shit costs money and x570 is already a very costly board to produce. not saying i agree with it, but i understand why.

I just checked the manual on their most expensive $650 x570 board, it is also using Asmedia on 2 of its 6 sata ports.

[Kisai]

5 hours ago, lansing said:

I'm using the MSI x570 A-Pro motherboard and I just installed a brand new WD blue 1TB ssd. The ssd spec is 560MB/s read and 530MB/s write. But on my benchmark, I'm getting sub-par speed at 360MB - 406MB. At first I thought that the drive was faulty. But then when I connected the drive to another sata port, I'm getting the advertised speed. See the red cable in the image.

 

connecting to the bottom sata port give me slow speed

 

 

connecting to the top port became normal again

 

What is the problem?

Look at the manual and check which ports run off the Asmedia controller and don't use that one. Leave that for like a SATA CD-ROM or a mechanical drive.

 

Now's probably a good time to point out how SATA ports work. The ones attached to the chipset have their own independent bandwidth from the Asmedia to whatever internal 4x pcie lanes. The Asmedia controller likely runs off just 1 lane, and probably also controls your front USB 3.0 ports. You often see Asmedia controllers as USB bridges in docking stations and the same effect is seen.

 

If you are using SSD's, you should be looking for the NVMe drives if your board supports it, as they will be a minimum of twice as fast.

[xg32]

i only use my asmedia ports for the blu-ray drive the 1% of the time it's even on, msi makes the cheapest entry level x570 boards, this is not on msi

[Kisai]

25 minutes ago, lansing said:

The manual said that sata1 and sata2 ports are from ASMedia ASM1061, and sata3 - sata6 are from AMD x570 chipset. A google search said that the ASMedia one sucks, why would MSI cheap it out like that?

Other than being MSI being a dodgy brand? That AMD chipset supports 12 SATA ports. 

 

However if you note here, only 4 SATA ports are actually wired to the chipset, over a 4x link. So if you want 8 SATA ports you must lose a M2 slot or lose a PCIe slot. The Asmedia in this case adds 2 ports, likely for the front of the board and hang off a 1x link.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

8 hours ago, lansing said:

The manual said that sata1 and sata2 ports are from ASMedia ASM1061, and sata3 - sata6 are from AMD x570 chipset. A google search said that the ASMedia one sucks, why would MSI cheap it out like that?

I can't tell you why, but I can tell you that it's a pretty widespread practice to have additional ports hooked through additional controllers, hence why immediately suspected it  

Regarding the quality of the controller itself... I don't know, it seems to be another case of "$2,000 smart TV, $2 chip driving it"