Advice on Disk drives

[Networking and Web Hosting]

Hi,
I will be needing extra storage and that will mean adding a PCI card to
add an
additional drive, guess eventually I could add more than one on that PCI
expansion card.
Anyway, I see the various types of interfaces; There's
1) E-IDE
2) SATA
3) ATA/100
4) Ultra Series ATA/133 - same as SATA?
5) SATA/150
6) EIDA Ultra /100

How do I compare the performance on these devices? I know to look at buffer
size but there are clearly these other factors regarding the inteface. I
guess much will depend on what is supported by the motherboard or expansion
card.
Thanks in advance for any advice,
Bruce


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[Mike Walsh]

Hi,
I will be needing extra storage and that will mean adding a PCI card to
add an
additional drive, guess eventually I could add more than one on that PCI
expansion card.
Anyway, I see the various types of interfaces; There's
1) E-IDE
2) SATA
3) ATA/100
4) Ultra Series ATA/133 - same as SATA?
5) SATA/150
6) EIDA Ultra /100

All IDE/ATA drives are either SATA (serial ATA) or the older parallel ATA. They use different cables and the ports are different, but some drives will accept either parallel ATA or SATA cables. The drives and ports (both ATA and SATA) are rated for diffent speeds but compatibility is not a problem; e.g. a ATA133 drive will work on a ATA100 port and a ATA100 drive will work on a ATA133 port.
Ultra Series ATA/133 is not the same as SATA

How do I compare the performance on these devices? I know to look at buffer
size but there are clearly these other factors regarding the inteface. I
guess much will depend on what is supported by the motherboard or expansion
card.

I have found hard drive performance to be better with Promise add on cards than with motherboard ports with Win9x. DMA must be enabled for good performance. Performance depends on many things; port speed, buffer size, rotation speed, seek time, bit density, etc.

 

[kony]

I have found hard drive performance to be better with Promise
add on cards than with motherboard ports with Win9x. DMA
must be enabled for good performance. Performance depends
on many things; port speed, buffer size, rotation speed, seek
time, bit density, etc.

Interesting, I have seen the opposite, that the onboard (southbridge
integral) IDE is always significantly faster, providing it at least
supports ATA100.

 

[Networking and Web Hosting]

I have on one of the IDE ports on my system a DVD-RW/CD-RW drive. It says
it should be master. Should that be a problem with an extra hard drive
being slave? I was looking at pci cards for i/o and many have limits on the
size of the disk they can support, as in 128GB. I had not considered that
problem.
Bruce

 

[Trent©]

Hi,
I will be needing extra storage and that will mean adding a PCI card to
add an
additional drive, guess eventually I could add more than one on that PCI
expansion card.
Anyway, I see the various types of interfaces; There's
1) E-IDE
2) SATA
3) ATA/100
4) Ultra Series ATA/133 - same as SATA?
5) SATA/150
6) EIDA Ultra /100

How do I compare the performance on these devices? I know to look at buffer
size but there are clearly these other factors regarding the inteface. I
guess much will depend on what is supported by the motherboard or expansion
card.
Thanks in advance for any advice,
Bruce

When purchasing a drive, you generally want the fastest rotational
speed, the largest cache available, the best warranty, and the best
service department.

The only drive that fits all those qualifications right now is the
Western Digital Raptor drive.


Have a nice week...

Trent©

Follow Joan Rivers' example --- get pre-embalmed!

 

[Trent©]

I have on one of the IDE ports on my system a DVD-RW/CD-RW drive. It says
it should be master. Should that be a problem with an extra hard drive
being slave?

No. But your BIOS must be able to see and use that drive. You may
have capacity limitations on that mainboard.

I was looking at pci cards for i/o and many have limits on the
size of the disk they can support, as in 128GB. I had not considered that
problem.

The newer ones go beyond that. But you then also need an operating
system that will support those very large sizes.

Check with the vendor before you actually make the purchase. They
should be able to advise you properly.


Have a nice week...

Trent©

Follow Joan Rivers' example --- get pre-embalmed!

 

[kony]

I have on one of the IDE ports on my system a DVD-RW/CD-RW drive. It says
it should be master.

They are basically lying to you. I'm serious, there is no technical
reason why it has to be the master. Whichever drive is situated the
furthest from the board, yields itself best to be at the end of the IDE
cable, might as well be set to master... that may be the DVDRW drive due
to the way most cases are laid out but it's not necessary.

Should that be a problem with an extra hard drive
being slave?

Back in the good ole days a hard drive might have had to be the primary
master for the bios to boot from it, but those days are over, the drive
can be placed anywhere. In particular you'd want the (most frequent)
source of the data burnt to the DVDRW to be on a different channel than
the DVDRW drive, and vice-versa, if often ripping DVD or whatever, the
DVDRW becomes the source and would be better placing on different IDE
channel than the destination (hard drive or whatever).

I was looking at pci cards for i/o and many have limits on the
size of the disk they can support, as in 128GB. I had not considered that
problem.
Bruce

Generally a major brand ATA100 (Promise (Maxtor relabeled Promise cards
too), Highpoint) can have the bios flash upgraded to support 48bit LBA
(what is needed to support HDD over 128MB) if they didn't come from
factory with new enough bios already flashed. ATA133 cards should all
have 48bit LBA from factory. In other words avoid ATA33 or ATA66 cards.

When in doubt note the brand of card (or if generic, the chip used) and
goto the respective brand or chip manufacturer's website and seek what it
supports and the bios updates available.

 

[kony]

When purchasing a drive, you generally want the fastest rotational
speed, the largest cache available, the best warranty, and the best
service department.

The only drive that fits all those qualifications right now is the
Western Digital Raptor drive.

What about best GB/$ or lowest failure-or-problem rate?
Accordig to user feedback on Newegg.com, the Raptors are the most
problematic drives out there right now. As per our previous conversation
about power supplies, I"ll leave it to you to speculate WHY they're a
problem, but I'm also considering that the similar problems should be
apparent with the other makes/models but aren't to the same frequency.

 

[Trent©]

What about best GB/$

This is never a consideration for me. To me, it doesn't make much
sense to install something inferior...just to save a few bucks.

Right now, the Raptor is DEFINITELY not the best bargain out there in
this category. But, on the other hand, there's still a lot of 5400
RPM bargains out there to pick from, too. lol

Soon, all SATA's will be 10,000 RPM...or higher.

or lowest failure-or-problem rate?

This is only important when data is compiled by an appropriate testing
authority. Newsgroups...and, in general, residential feedback...is
NOT that testing authority. As mentioned before, a HUGE number of
drives are RMA'd...that have no problem at all. And I would bet that
most of the owners of those drives have submitted negative feedback.

Accordig to user feedback on Newegg.com, the Raptors are the most
problematic drives out there right now. As per our previous conversation
about power supplies, I"ll leave it to you to speculate WHY they're a
problem,

That DOESN'T make them a problem...lol. Yes...the SAME scenario as
the power supplies! Only the FEEDBACK is negative! Feedback isn't
always factual...although its often considered factual.

Go to Tom's Hardware...or other such sites...for evaluations.

but I'm also considering that the similar problems should be
apparent with the other makes/models but aren't to the same frequency.

Frequency/rate changes enormously on a daily basis...as more drives
are manufactured and sold.

And I know of no other makes/models of IDE drives that are 10,000 RPM.

I've installed several Raptor's now...and I highly recommend them.
Not just because they're so much faster than any drive out there...for
tasks of the everyday user. But also because of WD's dependability in
general...and excellent customer service in particular.


Have a nice week...

Trent©

Follow Joan Rivers' example --- get pre-embalmed!