Intel 510 SSD Seen as 3Gbs Drive

[idata]

I just built a system on an Asus P8Z68 Deluxe motherboard that includes two Intel 510 256Gb drives. One is drive C and the other is drive D on ports 0 and 1 respectively of the Intel controller. I am not using the Marvell controller. I was dissapointed in the Primary Drive WEI score so I opened the Intel RST Management panel and noticed the C drive is reporting a SATA Transfer Rate of 3Gbs while the D drive is reporting a 6Gbs transfer rate. The only difference between the two drives is the C drive is running the PWG2 firmware while the other one is running the PWG4 firmware. Does anyone have any thoughts on what may be holding this drive back?

[idata]

Because you're using RST, this makes figuring out if the problem is with the drive itself or with the SATA controller very difficult. Excessive PHY errors could cause the speed to be re-negotiated at a lower rate. These sometimes manifest themselves as CRC errors in SMART statistics.

EDIT: Nevermind. I forgot that Intel SSDs don't provide SMART attribute 0xC7, so determining if there are CRC errors is impossible. PHY errors may be possible to get but you'll need an Intel engineer to provide the low-level details of which SCT page in the drive contains that information and what byte offset.

EDIT # 2: I see you're using the on-board Intel controller and not the Marvell. Okay.

[idata]

HI,

The difference in speeds between your 2 drives isn't as marked as mine but am I right in guessing that drive C is the one with PPG(PWG)2 firmware?

It's interesting that you've proved RST doesn't just report the state at boot as the person on the Intel chat insisted. I wasn't 100% sure that they knew what they were talking about anyway!

I think Intel are like Coke - they'll be everywhere. Where are you exactly?

I've now given Intel every single bit of information that they requested - Grandmother's shoe size, colour of the guy next door's car, etc. so they should finally pass the case on to an engineer. I hope to hear from them soon.

[idata]

You are correct. The firmware for drive C is PWG2 and drive D is PWG4. I will try to contact Intel tonight.

[idata]

After a quick search it seems that firmware that starts "PPG" is for 120gb drives and "PWG" for 256gb drives. I came across a lot of discussion on a German site about the difference in firmware and speed and also some people in a Mac forum talking about it. I think Intel must be aware of this issue by now but I don't know whether or not this includes the drives changing from 6gb/s to 3gb/s

[idata]

I opened my own problem record with Intel tonight and she immediately escalated it after referring to yours. She said it typically takes between 24 and 48 hours before someone get's back to you so maybe we'll know something more by the end of this week.