T
Terry Pinnell
Mike Tomlinson said:
You've now strolled out of my technical comfort zone!
You've now strolled out of my technical comfort zone!
T
Terry Pinnell
Many thanks Franc.
Duly downloaded and may try later.
Thanks, that makes sense, and confirms Jaimie's post earlier. Strange way
of reporting it though, IMO. Equivalent to my boasting that I'm getting 75
mpg from my car instead of the actual 25!
I'll take your word for that!
Now that is particularly interesting. On this OEM PC, a 'MESH GTS Xtreme,
Quad Core Q9450' nearly 5 years old, the two internal drives are supposed
to be IDENTICAL. The order confirmation from MESH UK says "2 x 750 GB
Serial ATA2 HDs with 32 MB buffer (SAMSUNG HD753LJ SCSI)". Can you amplify
on why they are setup differently please? It was an arbitrary choice at
the time to put my OS and data on C: (now the slower one). Had I known
that I: was potentially faster then I'd have chosen that, instead of using
it mainly for backup. (BTW, I do at least have my 3.4 GB pagefile on I:,
which presumably helps performance a bit?)
I wish I could answer your question. Is there some way I can establish
that, bearing in mind my relatively low technical savvy?
Duly downloaded and may try later.
Thanks, that makes sense, and confirms Jaimie's post earlier. Strange way
of reporting it though, IMO. Equivalent to my boasting that I'm getting 75
mpg from my car instead of the actual 25!
I'll take your word for that!
Now that is particularly interesting. On this OEM PC, a 'MESH GTS Xtreme,
Quad Core Q9450' nearly 5 years old, the two internal drives are supposed
to be IDENTICAL. The order confirmation from MESH UK says "2 x 750 GB
Serial ATA2 HDs with 32 MB buffer (SAMSUNG HD753LJ SCSI)". Can you amplify
on why they are setup differently please? It was an arbitrary choice at
the time to put my OS and data on C: (now the slower one). Had I known
that I: was potentially faster then I'd have chosen that, instead of using
it mainly for backup. (BTW, I do at least have my 3.4 GB pagefile on I:,
which presumably helps performance a bit?)
I wish I could answer your question. Is there some way I can establish
that, bearing in mind my relatively low technical savvy?
T
Terry Pinnell
Mike Tomlinson said:
Here's an extract of what I see from that:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4019461/HDs-DeviceMgr.jpg
I wasn't sure what would be most relevant for the Controller stuff so
chose 'Device Instance Id'. Please advise if other entries in that
drop-down would help.
IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers
=========================
NVIDIA nForce Serial ATA Controller #1
--------------------------------------
Properties >Details:
PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0266&SUBSYS_81BC1043&REV_A1\3&2411E6FE&0&70
NVIDIA nForce Serial ATA Controller #2
--------------------------------------
Properties >Details:
PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0267&SUBSYS_81BC1043&REV_A1\3&2411E6FE&0&78
Disk Drives
===========
SAMSUNG HD753LJ SCSI Disk Device #1
-----------------------------------
Properties > General > Location:
Bus Number 0, Target ID 0, LUN 0
Properties > Details > Device Instance Id:
SCSI\DISK&VEN_SAMSUNG&PROD_HD753LJ&REV_1AA0\4&358DCF36&0&000
SAMSUNG HD753LJ SCSI Disk Device #2
-----------------------------------
Properties > General > Location:
Bus Number 1, Target ID 1, LUN 0
Properties > Details > Device Instance Id:
SCSI\DISK&VEN_SAMSUNG&PROD_HD753LJ&REV_1AA0\4&358DCF36&0&110
M
Mike Tomlinson
Terry Pinnell said:
You appear to have both PATA (parallel IDE) and SATA ports on the
motherboard, and your two Samsung drives are attached to the SATA ports
provided by the motherboard nForce chipset.
Franc's suggestion of the differing performance of the two drives being
down to them being attached to different controllers therefore doesn't
apply.
Running out of ideas here, but two suggestions:
1) have a look through Event Viewer's System and Application logs, are
any disk I/O errors reported?
2) update your nForce chipset drivers to the latest - you can do this
via nvidia.com/Download drivers.
F
Franc Zabkar
I wonder if HD Tune's Burst Rate result of 140MB/s can be believed. If
so, then this would suggest that the SATA interface is not a
bottleneck.
BTW, doesn't the fact that the drive is reported as a SCSI device
suggest that Microsoft's drivers are being used rather than NVIDIA's?
Or does this just confirm that IDE mode is active rather than AHCI?
- Franc Zabkar
F
Franc Zabkar
I looked, but I missed it. Sorry Jamie.
The normalised values are "health" scores. The higher the number, the
healthier the drive. In most cases a figure of 100 reflects a perfect
score. Therefore the HDD manufacturers sometimes fiddle with the
numbers so that they appear logical. In fact WD often uses the
following relationship:
Normalised Value = 150 - Temperature
So a temperature of 50C scores 100 points while a temperature of 29C
scores 121.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.
It's not as difficult as it sounds. You could use Google's calculator
to help you.
http://www.google.com/search?q=555352093+in+hexadecimal
http://www.google.com/search?q=0x1D+in+decimal
They are SATA drives, not SCSI.
HDD manufacturers often play with the internal configuration. For
example, I have seen one case where WD shipped a short stroked 750GB
drive to satisfy a 500GB order. So instead of a single 500GB platter
with 2 heads, WD took a 750GB model which had two 500GB platters and 3
heads, and then reduced its capacity to 500GB by short stroking it.
Another example is Seagate's current ST2000DM001-9YN164 2TB model
which can be configured with two 1TB platters and 4 heads, or three
666GB platters and 5 or 6 heads:
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/HDD/GRCC4CD9.TXT
Samsung's datasheet states that the SpinPoint F1 series can have 1, 2,
or 3 platters, with a maximum formatted capacity of 334GB per platter.
http://www.samsung.com/us/business/semiconductor/news/downloads/dsF11008.pdf
So it appears that some drives have 250GB platters, while others have
334GB. But your fast drive seems a lot faster than what we would
expect from a 334GB-per-platter model (if we extrapolate the curve,
and if we assume that the drive is fully stroked).
Yes, I would think so.
- Franc Zabkar
F
Franc Zabkar
Sorry, that should have been "Jaimie".
This benchmark is consistent with three 300GB platters and 5 heads:
http://www.pcaxe.com/slike/hardver/...3LJ/software/Hdtune_write_samsung_HD753LJ.PNG
This one looks like your slow drive (three 250GB platters, 6 heads):
http://imageshack.us/scaled/landing/329/hd753ljhdtuneoi8.jpg
This one looks like it has 2 short stroked 400GB (?) platters:
http://i50.tinypic.com/2i90zr4.png
This one looks like your fast drive, also with a leading 110MB/s
plateau:
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=11563674&postcount=702
- Franc Zabkar
F
Franc Zabkar
Sigh, I should pay more attention before posting.
The above graph is for a write benchmark, not read. Writes are slower
than reads, so I don't know whether my interpretation makes sense.
- Franc Zabkar
F
Franc Zabkar
I have a WILD idea that may explain the results, but it's pure
speculation.
AIUI, 250GB-per-platter data densities result in maximum sustained
transfer rates of 90MB/s at the outermost zones for 7200RPM drives. At
333GB per platter, the figure becomes 105MB/s, and at 500GB per
platter it is of the order of 125-130MB/s.
What if the SpinPoint F1 models were at an end-of-life stage waiting
to be transitioned to 500GB-per-platter technology? The existing
technology accommodated 250GB- and 334GB-per-platter hardware and may
not have been up to the task of 500GB-per-platter data rates.
Let's assume that the existing heads had a frequency response (bits
per second) that limited them to 400GB-per-platter data densities.
Normally (?), if HDD manufacturers wish to reduce the capacity of a
1TB drive to 750GB, they will do so by shortstroking it, ie by
discarding the lesser performing innermost zones.
What if Samsung took two 500GB platters and reduced their capacities
by carving 250GB from the outermost zones? They could do so by
reducing the bits-per-inch to a value that stays within the frequency
response limits of the older heads. That would account for the
plateau, and the burst rate, and the 500GB-per-platter data rate at
the innermost zones.
- Franc Zabkar
J
Jaimie Vandenbergh
Don't worry about it - I'm not fussy! Good info on the platters, I
didn't think that would be done under the one model number. I should
be less optimistic...
Cheers - Jaimie
F
Franc Zabkar
In retrospect, carving 25% of the total capacity from the outermost
zones seems excessive. Instead, what if the bulk of the capacity could
be cut by reducing the number of tracks per zone across the entire
platter?
For example, let's assume we have a 1TB drive with two 500GB platters
and 4 heads. We now wish to create a 750GB drive with two 375GB
platters and 4 heads. Let's assume that the average number of tracks
per zone is 1000 and 750, respectively. If we reduce the tracks per
zone from 1000 to 800, say, then the capacity would be cut from 1TB to
800GB. We could then carve the remaining 50GB from the outermost zones
by limiting their bit rate.
By doing it this way, we would be relaxing the requirements on the
track servo, as well as on the heads.
- Franc Zabkar
J
Jaimie Vandenbergh
I don't think you would - the track would still be as narrow, and so
would require the same accuracy in servo and heads for pickup and
tracking. No change to requirements of either.
Your original suggestion requires just one change to the firmware -
stroke length limit - and would also boost the performance of the
drive relative to other 750gig devices, good for review purposes. This
new suggestion would require several changes and not boost
performance.
Cheers - Jaimie
F
Franc Zabkar
I re-examined the curve for the fast drive. ISTM that, if
extrapolated, it could intersect the vertical axis at about 120MB/s or
less. If so, then this would suggest that it may have two slightly
shortstroked 400GB platters. However, this then leaves us with the
enigma of a 140MB/s burst rate and a 110MB/s plateau.
I tried to compare the drive against a single platter 500GB Samsung
HDD, but I only found the following Advanced Format model:
http://imageshack.us/scaled/landing/522/hd502hj.jpg
AF drives typically pack 10% more bits per track than their non-AF
equivalents, so maybe a 7200RPM 500GB non-AF Samsung drive would have
a maximum transfer rate of around 130MB/s (144.5 / 1.10). Therefore
Terry's drive probably doesn't have 500GB platters.
- Franc Zabkar
M
Mike Tomlinson
Franc Zabkar said:
Isn't burst rate a transfer between the drive's cache and the
controller? If so, 140MB/s would seem believable for SATA1 (150MB/s)
but slow for SATA2 (300MB/s).
M
Mike Tomlinson
Jaimie said:
You would hope not. That was one of the reasons I asked Terry to post
the output from Device Mangler, in the hope that it would show a subtle
variation in the drive model numbers to reflect the difference in spec.
As it is, he might have to whip the lid off and look at the labels.
R
Rob
I've changed from IDE to AHCI or RAID several times in XP, but always
with image backups, just in case.
IF you are lucky enough to have TWO HD controllers on your mobo, it
is painless. Luckily most of the systems I've done were mid-high
end Asus boards, so had both an Intel ICHx chipset and a second HD
controller, such as a JMicron, Silicon Image, Marvell etc.
Just disconnect the boot drive from the chipset (ICHx) controller
and plug it in to the 2nd controller. Check that it boots
normally (if not, check the 2nd controller is enabled and set to
IDE mode in BIOS - may need to swap back to ICH header and install
drivers for the 2nd controller if any settings were changed.)
Once booting normally from the 2nd controller, restart, go back
into the BIOS and change the main (ICH) controller to AHCI or RAID,
as required.
Boot XP and install the ICH AHCI/RAID drivers (typically, by
running the Intel RST setup.)
Shutdown, swap cable back to one of the ICH SATA headers and
reboot into XP which now has the correct drivers installed.
On a basic mobo with only an Intel ICH controller, it was more
painful. Most of those also have a PATA connector, which is
crucial for this method, as is a spare PATA drive:
1) Make image of SATA boot drive.
2) Restore image to temporary PATA drive.
3) Disconnect SATA cable, check/configure BIOS so it boots OK
to the temporary PATA drive.
4) Restart, change SATA to AHCI or RAID as needed in BIOS.
5) Boot XP on PATA, install SATA AHCI/RAID driver (typically by
installing Intel RST.)
6) Image PATA drive (which now has the correct drivers installed.)
7) Remove PATA drive, connect SATA drive then restore image from
step 6 to the SATA drive.
8) Boot to XP on SATA drive, which now had the correct drivers.
Hope someone finds these methods useful - no mucking about with
the Registry needed.
Cheers,
M
Mike Tomlinson
Rob said:
[chomp]
Thanks for that, Rob. I have a Z77 chipset board, and I think all the
SATA interfaces (2 x SATA3 and 4 x SATA2) hang off the ICH chipset, so I
don't have the option of using a second controller to do the shuffling
you describe.
Searched the hard drive for msahci.sys, which isn't present, so if I
were to make changing from IDE mode to AHCI work I would need to install
the Intel AHCI driver, shut down, change the BIOS from IDE to AHCI, then
reboot and hopefully that would do the trick. I don't see the need to
install the full Intel RST software, shirley all it needs is the Intel
variant of msahci.sys to be present?
In any case, I'll make sure I have an image first
M
Mike Tomlinson
John Jordan said:
Ta. Perhaps I can extract it from the CAB/.zip/whatever and stick it in
%windir%\system32.
R
Rob
Dunno, but JJ is right about the Intel stuff not installing in IDE mode.
I've a feeling you need to do one of the Registry fiddles to get going.
Don't suppose you have a pci/pcie sata card lying around? If so, you
could temporarily bung that in and use the first method.