Asus SATA Dongle on a A7N8X Deluxe

[JKay]

I purchased two Asus SATA Dongles for use on a Asus A7N8X even though Asus
specifically states the dongle are for the P4PE, A7V8X, P4SDX and P4S8X
motherboards using the Promise SATA Controller Chip.

One of the dongles worked on the A7N8X and the other seem to be DOA, and was
returned.

Using an older IBM 120GXP 60Gig drive I ran SiSoft 2003 on the single drive
while still connected to the primary IDE port on the A7N8X and received a
score of 25,412. Same drive as a single on the SATA port produced a score
of 23,177

I had originally intended to screw around and do a raid 0 on a pair of old
IBM 120 GXP's, but I think I will wait for the hard drive companies to
produce real SATA drives.

 

[Nom]

Using an older IBM 120GXP 60Gig drive I ran SiSoft 2003 on the single drive
while still connected to the primary IDE port on the A7N8X and received a
score of 25,412. Same drive as a single on the SATA port produced a score
of 23,177

So ? SATA's advantages are not performance-related.

I had originally intended to screw around and do a raid 0 on a pair of old
IBM 120 GXP's, but I think I will wait for the hard drive companies to
produce real SATA drives.

Why ? SATA is better than IDE in every single possible way.

 

[Kenneth A Kauffman]

I purchased two Asus SATA Dongles for use on a Asus A7N8X even though Asus
specifically states the dongle are for the P4PE, A7V8X, P4SDX and P4S8X
motherboards using the Promise SATA Controller Chip.

One of the dongles worked on the A7N8X and the other seem to be DOA, and was
returned.

Using an older IBM 120GXP 60Gig drive I ran SiSoft 2003 on the single drive
while still connected to the primary IDE port on the A7N8X and received a
score of 25,412. Same drive as a single on the SATA port produced a score
of 23,177

I had originally intended to screw around and do a raid 0 on a pair of old
IBM 120 GXP's, but I think I will wait for the hard drive companies to
produce real SATA drives.

This makes sense. The converter is not "native" SATA, so there should be a
performance hit for the conversion. Companies already do have SATA drives
out. Seagate, WD and Maxtor.

ken k

 

[JKay]

This makes sense. The converter is not "native" SATA, so there should be
a

performance hit for the conversion. Companies already do have SATA drives
out. Seagate, WD and Maxtor.
ken k

Your right the lack of performance with the dongle conversion unit is
reasonable.
However, the alleged real SATA (UDMA 150) drives do not perform as well as
say a PATA Western Digital 250 Gig UDMA 100 drive.

I say alleged SATA, because it appears these early SATA drives are just
hacked PATA drive, and thus a corresponding performance hit.

 

[JKay]

So ? SATA's advantages are not performance-related.

Why ? SATA is better than IDE in every single possible way.

So name a few. Certainly performance at this point in time is not one of
them
if you are not using some type of raid configuration.

 

[JKay]

Seconded.

JKay, you need a better DRIVE for better performance. Forget about the
interface used - IDE/SATA/SCSI is not relevent.

Well, you just talked me into it. I order a Raptor. Should be here
tomorrow afternoon. Going to try it as a single for now.

 

[Ben Pope]

Well, you just talked me into it. I order a Raptor. Should be here
tomorrow afternoon. Going to try it as a single for now.

Let us know what you think of it.

Ben

 

[Dave Sheehy]

Nom ([email protected]) wrote:
: : > So name a few.

: Command Queuing.
: Tagged Command Support.

These are not unique to SATA. They are described in the latest ATA spec
and therefore apply to all ATA type drives irrespective of interconnect
technology.

: Greater bus speed.

Don't know exactly what you mean here (i.e. SATA isn't a bus) but ultimately
whatever the interconnect they both terminate at either PCI or somewhere
inside the Northbridge and are bottlenecked there.

Dave

 

[Nom]

Well, you just talked me into it. I order a Raptor. Should be here
tomorrow afternoon. Going to try it as a single for now.

Sweet

 

[JKay]

FYI. looks like the raptor isn't as good as it should be. it does run
cooler though.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1175844,00.asp

ken k

Ken K:

I agree none of the SATA drives are very exciting at this point.
The www.storagereview.com did a preview of this drive using
the Promise and the Silicon Image SATA controllers.
They gave the drive a buy recommendation, using the Promise
controller. Unfortunately, the Asus A7N8X Deluxe m/b uses
the Silicon Image controller chip.

This is going in a game machine and really is just an excuse to
pry the lid off and play down in the engine room.

 

[Dave Sheehy]

Nom ([email protected]) wrote:
: : > Nom ([email protected]) wrote:
: > : : > : > So name a few.
: >
: > : Command Queuing.
: > : Tagged Command Support.
: >
: > These are not unique to SATA. They are described in the latest ATA spec
: > and therefore apply to all ATA type drives irrespective of interconnect
: > technology.

: But that's irrelevent - they aren't actually *implemented* within IDE, and
: they won't ever be. IIRC, the only reason they're described as you say, is
: to keep the software compatibility between IDE and SATA.

My point is that you were listing these as unique to SATA and they're not
at least from a standards point of view. Whether it actually gets implemented
is another issue as you point out. Another issues is driver support. Are
they just re-using the old IDE drivers to drive the SATA interfaces? If so,
then the driver is not taking advantage of the above features. And what's
so hot about ATA style command queueing anyway? The commands have to execute
in order so the drive can't optimize its accesses to the media like a SCSI
drive can. All you really gain as far as I can see is reduced turn around
time in issuing IOs to the disk.

: What was the point of this post ? Are you trying to say SATA isn't
: preferable to IDE ?
: IDE is a nasty old kludge, and it's about time it went away and died.

I think ATA in general is a kluge and it's about time the whole thing
went away and died. If I had my druthers SAS would be the winner for low
end disk connect.

Dave