How to enable SATA2 transfer?

[Steve]

Had a SATA 150 that was replaced with a SATA2 as boot drive and it is
now being used as storage. After running HD Tach and Sisoft Sandra, it
seems that the SATA 150 is transferring data faster than the latest
drive. How do I enable a faster transfer in the BIOS?

Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 ST3200826AS
Western Digital WDCaviar SE16 WD2500KSRTL
CORSAIR XMS2 1G(512X2) DDR2 5400
ANTEC TPII-430ATX RTL
MB Asus P5WD2 Premium - BIOS 0422
Pentium 4 640

Thanks -

 

[Rod Speed]

Had a SATA 150 that was replaced with a SATA2 as boot drive and it is
now being used as storage. After running HD Tach and Sisoft Sandra, it
seems that the SATA 150 is transferring data faster than the latest drive.

Likely that's because the original drive is a faster drive.

The protocol used over the cable isnt usually relevant, its
normally the drive physical characteristics that matters most,
particularly the sectors per track when the RPM is the same.

How do I enable a faster transfer in the BIOS?

Should be automatic if you havent jumpered the SATA2 drive to use 150.

 

[Steve]

Likely that's because the original drive is a faster drive.

But the original drive is a 150 and I just added the Western Digital
SATA 300. Isn't the new drive capable of moving data around at the
rate of ~220mb/sec?

The protocol used over the cable isnt usually relevant, its
normally the drive physical characteristics that matters most,
particularly the sectors per track when the RPM is the same.


Should be automatic if you havent jumpered the SATA2 drive to use 150.

A jumper was placed in the Default 2 setting because I was originally
having problems loading Windows. Switched my burner over from the EIDE
or red connectors to the Primary IDE Connector and the blue screen did
not appear anymore.

While troubleshooting I found a reference in the setup sheet that
showed a jumper being set in the default 2 position. Called up Western
Digital's Tech Support after a couple days of running the new system
and asked them about using that jumper and was told that it was a
delimiter for SATA 150 drives. Have removed the jumper before the
benchmarks were taken and it seems that I can only get 153mb/sec from
the SATA2 drive.

Should I remove the battery and reset the BIOS?

 

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote

But the original drive is a 150 and I just added the
Western Digital SATA 300. Isn't the new drive capable
of moving data around at the rate of ~220mb/sec?

In theory, yes. In practice the result you see with HDTach is
entirely determined by the sectors per track the drive has,
and you never get anywhere near what the cable can do.

That should be obvious from the HDTach thruput numbers.

A jumper was placed in the Default 2 setting because I was
originally having problems loading Windows. Switched my
burner over from the EIDE or red connectors to the Primary
IDE Connector and the blue screen did not appear anymore.

While troubleshooting I found a reference in the setup sheet that
showed a jumper being set in the default 2 position. Called up Western
Digital's Tech Support after a couple days of running the new system
and asked them about using that jumper and was told that it was a
delimiter for SATA 150 drives. Have removed the jumper before the
benchmarks were taken and it seems that I can only get 153mb/sec
from the SATA2 drive.

Because that is determined by the drive
physical characteristics, sectors per track.

Should I remove the battery and reset the BIOS?

Wont make any difference, the drive physical detail determines the HDTach
result.

 

[Grumps]

In theory, yes. In practice the result you see with HDTach is
entirely determined by the sectors per track the drive has,
and you never get anywhere near what the cable can do.

That should be obvious from the HDTach thruput numbers.




Because that is determined by the drive
physical characteristics, sectors per track.


Wont make any difference, the drive physical detail determines the
HDTach result.

For the OP's benefit, I think what you haven't explicitly mentioned is that
SATA150,SATA2,SATA300 (or whatever) refers to the interface (cable) speed,
and not the data rate from this interface and onto the disks themselves.
This is the bottleneck, and is the same for IDE drives too.
So, as Rod says, the difference in speed is down to rpm and sectors/track
(all other things, like good internal design, being equal).

 

[Paul]

For the OP's benefit, I think what you haven't explicitly mentioned is that
SATA150,SATA2,SATA300 (or whatever) refers to the interface (cable) speed,
and not the data rate from this interface and onto the disks themselves.
This is the bottleneck, and is the same for IDE drives too.
So, as Rod says, the difference in speed is down to rpm and sectors/track
(all other things, like good internal design, being equal).

To give some concrete numbers:

1) The media rate of the data coming off the disk is about
60MB/sec at the beginning of the disk. The media rate
near the end of the disk is 40MB/sec. Those numbers might
be typical of a 7200 RPM disk. Storagereview.com keeps a
database of disk performance numbers, with some choices
that go slightly faster.

2) On an old SATA150 drive, the controller design may be
bridged. The first SATA drives that came out were not native.
They used an old ribbon cable design, and slapped a bridge
chip on the controller, to make the transition to SATA. Those
drives might be burst limited to 100MB/sec or 133MB/sec, and
won't do the full 150MB/sec.

3) At this point in time, one would hope a SATA300 drive is
a native design, so no more IDE core + bridge. The design
could still, in principle, be limited by whatever choice
the designer made for the cache memory, or the clock rate
used for the data processing. Only testing will tell how
close it gets to 300MB/sec on a burst.

4) Motherboard chipsets may have internal limitations. Some
Northbridge to Southbridge busses now run at 1GB/sec, so that
won't be a limitation. Previous generation hub busses ran
at 266MB/sec.

5) If a SATA (RAID) controller chip is used on the motherboard,
it has its own properties. If the chip is connected to the
PCI bus, the bus is limited to 110-120MB/sec of a theoretical
max of 133MB/sec. If the chip is connected to PCI Express x1,
the PCI Express can manage 250MB/sec, so wouldn't achieve the
full 300MB/sec. Due to the packetized nature of the data
movement, you won't get the full rate for user data. In RAID 0
stripe mode, it is also possible the combined burst speed of
the disks, will exceed the capabilities of the bus.

To understand what to expect, you have to glance at the architecture
of your computer, and understand where the bottlenecks are. Just
because the drive label says 300MB/sec, you will seldom see that
rate at the hardware level. (You can always be deceived by a
software cache, if the driver uses one. The quality of the
benchmarking software is important, to defeating the software
cache if one is present.)

Paul

 

[Rod Speed]

To give some concrete numbers:

1) The media rate of the data coming off the disk is about
60MB/sec at the beginning of the disk. The media rate
near the end of the disk is 40MB/sec. Those numbers might
be typical of a 7200 RPM disk. Storagereview.com keeps a
database of disk performance numbers, with some choices
that go slightly faster.

2) On an old SATA150 drive, the controller design may be
bridged. The first SATA drives that came out were not native.
They used an old ribbon cable design, and slapped a bridge
chip on the controller, to make the transition to SATA. Those
drives might be burst limited to 100MB/sec or 133MB/sec, and
won't do the full 150MB/sec.

3) At this point in time, one would hope a SATA300 drive is
a native design, so no more IDE core + bridge. The design
could still, in principle, be limited by whatever choice
the designer made for the cache memory, or the clock rate
used for the data processing. Only testing will tell how
close it gets to 300MB/sec on a burst.

4) Motherboard chipsets may have internal limitations. Some
Northbridge to Southbridge busses now run at 1GB/sec, so that
won't be a limitation. Previous generation hub busses ran
at 266MB/sec.

5) If a SATA (RAID) controller chip is used on the motherboard,
it has its own properties. If the chip is connected to the
PCI bus, the bus is limited to 110-120MB/sec of a theoretical
max of 133MB/sec. If the chip is connected to PCI Express x1,
the PCI Express can manage 250MB/sec, so wouldn't achieve the
full 300MB/sec. Due to the packetized nature of the data
movement, you won't get the full rate for user data. In RAID 0
stripe mode, it is also possible the combined burst speed of
the disks, will exceed the capabilities of the bus.

To understand what to expect, you have to glance at the architecture
of your computer, and understand where the bottlenecks are. Just
because the drive label says 300MB/sec, you will seldom see that
rate at the hardware level. (You can always be deceived by a
software cache, if the driver uses one. The quality of the
benchmarking software is important, to defeating the software
cache if one is present.)

And in practice, with the HDTach result the OP was talking
about, none of that has any relevance at all, its ALL
determined by the hard drive physical characteristics,
sectors per track, with a properly setup system.

Sandra is a steaming turd thats irrelevant for benchmarking.