New SATA hard drive!

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ToolPackinMama

I have been content until now to stick with IDE drives in my personal
computer. IMHO, SATA finally is mature enough to get excited about.

I bought a 250 gigabyte (7500 RPM) Western Digital SATA hard drive, with
16 mb cache, for under one hundred dollars, this week. I normally prefer
Seagate (7500 RPM) IDE drives, but the bang/buck ratio on this one was
IMHO irresistable.

Install/setup wasn't too complicated. I had to load the SATA drivers for
my motherboard first thing as XP prepared to load, and that wasn't hard.
I learned from you guys that it was better to disable my old IDE drive
while I installed the OS (slipstreamed WinXP Pro + SP2) to the new
drive. I re-enabled it after the OS was loaded to the new drive, and I
could then access all my old files, no problem.

WOW! What a performance boost I now enjoy! DANG! I noticed the
difference right away, early in the OS install procedure. At the point
where it says: "estimated time to completion...." - it first estimated
it would take a mere 23 minutes (that alone is unusually fast), BUT each
"minute" was only 15 seconds long in real time.

That's No ~Exaggeration~! Holy COW, that was IMPRESSIVE! :) I am
dazzled by the awesome speed of this new SATA hard drive.

I suspect my old IDE drive wasn't as fast as it coulda/shoulda have
been, (which may explain the huge difference). The only thing I don't
like is that my new WD SATA hard drive isn't totally silent like the
dear old Seagate HD was. It's _quiet_, but not silent.

FYI:

My own personal computer is a homebuilt: Lian Li aluminum case, MSI K8N
Neo4 motherboard, AMD Athlon 64 4000+ (ClawHammer 1GHz FSB 1MB L2 Cache
Socket 939) CPU . I have a gigabyte of Patriot "Extreme Performance" DDR
400 RAM. For video I chose an ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon X600Pro
(PCI-express, 256MB). My PC also has a 250 gigabyte (7500 RPM) Western
Digital SATA hard drive, and a Seagate 120 Gigabyte 7200 RPM EIDE HD
(dual-booting WinXP Pro SP2 and SuSE Linux 9.0), a NEC DVD-RW drive, an
RCA cable modem, and a TEAC floppy drive. I use a spectcular ~19"
Viewsonic VP191B~ LCD display. I love my flexible, washable, Mini-VIK
"Virtually indestructible keyboard", and my ergonomic ~Evoluent Vertical
Mouse~.

My favorite things: My awesome new HD, my incredible LCD monitor, and
my heaven-blessed ergonomic vertical mouse.
 
Jan Alter
(e-mail address removed)
or
(e-mail address removed)12.pa.us
ToolPackinMama said:
I have been content until now to stick with IDE drives in my personal
computer. IMHO, SATA finally is mature enough to get excited about.

I bought a 250 gigabyte (7500 RPM) Western Digital SATA hard drive, with
16 mb cache, for under one hundred dollars, this week. I normally prefer
Seagate (7500 RPM) IDE drives, but the bang/buck ratio on this one was
IMHO irresistable.

Install/setup wasn't too complicated. I had to load the SATA drivers for
my motherboard first thing as XP prepared to load, and that wasn't hard. I
learned from you guys that it was better to disable my old IDE drive while
I installed the OS (slipstreamed WinXP Pro + SP2) to the new drive. I
re-enabled it after the OS was loaded to the new drive, and I could then
access all my old files, no problem.

WOW! What a performance boost I now enjoy! DANG! I noticed the difference
right away, early in the OS install procedure. At the point where it says:
"estimated time to completion...." - it first estimated it would take a
mere 23 minutes (that alone is unusually fast), BUT each "minute" was only
15 seconds long in real time.

That's No ~Exaggeration~! Holy COW, that was IMPRESSIVE! :) I am dazzled
by the awesome speed of this new SATA hard drive.

I suspect my old IDE drive wasn't as fast as it coulda/shoulda have been,
(which may explain the huge difference). The only thing I don't like is
that my new WD SATA hard drive isn't totally silent like the dear old
Seagate HD was. It's _quiet_, but not silent.

FYI:

My own personal computer is a homebuilt: Lian Li aluminum case, MSI K8N
Neo4 motherboard, AMD Athlon 64 4000+ (ClawHammer 1GHz FSB 1MB L2 Cache
Socket 939) CPU . I have a gigabyte of Patriot "Extreme Performance" DDR
400 RAM. For video I chose an ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon X600Pro
(PCI-express, 256MB). My PC also has a 250 gigabyte (7500 RPM) Western
Digital SATA hard drive, and a Seagate 120 Gigabyte 7200 RPM EIDE HD
(dual-booting WinXP Pro SP2 and SuSE Linux 9.0), a NEC DVD-RW drive, an
RCA cable modem, and a TEAC floppy drive. I use a spectcular ~19"
Viewsonic VP191B~ LCD display. I love my flexible, washable, Mini-VIK
"Virtually indestructible keyboard", and my ergonomic ~Evoluent Vertical
Mouse~.

My favorite things: My awesome new HD, my incredible LCD monitor, and my
heaven-blessed ergonomic vertical mouse.
Click to expand...


It's interesting to read your impressions. Last week I also had built an AMD
64 3000+ socket 939 on a Biostar board using a WD 250 gb SATA drive and
was surprised when XP w/SP2 immediately recognized the drive without having
to load any drivers at all. I posed that question to the NG and got three
different answers: that winxP SP2 had the drivers on it, that the bios was
able to emulate a SCSI drive installation, and the third response was simply
that some boards don't require it (which sounds something like, "It's
magic"). My own guess is that the SATA driver is now being loaded into the
cmos of newer drivers to allow XP recognition on installation.
--
 
Jan said:
It's interesting to read your impressions. Last week I also had built an AMD
64 3000+ socket 939 on a Biostar board using a WD 250 gb SATA drive and
was surprised when XP w/SP2 immediately recognized the drive without having
to load any drivers at all.
Click to expand...

You know, come to think of it, I had the SATA drivers floppy in place,
but I don't remember the FDD being accessed.
I posed that question to the NG and got three
different answers: that winxP SP2 had the drivers on it, that the bios was
able to emulate a SCSI drive installation, and the third response was simply
that some boards don't require it (which sounds something like, "It's
magic"). My own guess is that the SATA driver is now being loaded into the
cmos of newer drivers to allow XP recognition on installation.
Click to expand...

Well, good. That's the way it should be.
 
ToolPackinMamawrote
I have been content until now to stick with IDE drives in my persona
computer. IMHO, SATA finally is mature enough to get excited about

I bought a 250 gigabyte (7500 RPM) Western Digital SATA hard drive with
16 mb cache, for under one hundred dollars, this week. I normall prefer
Seagate (7500 RPM) IDE drives, but the bang/buck ratio on this on was
IMHO irresistable

Install/setup wasn't too complicated. I had to load the SATA driver for
my motherboard first thing as XP prepared to load, and that wasn' hard.
I learned from you guys that it was better to disable my old ID drive
while I installed the OS (slipstreamed WinXP Pro + SP2) to the new
drive. I re-enabled it after the OS was loaded to the new drive, an I
could then access all my old files, no problem

WOW! What a performance boost I now enjoy! DANG! I noticed the
difference right away, early in the OS install procedure. At th point
where it says: "estimated time to completion...." - it firs estimated
it would take a mere 23 minutes (that alone is unusually fast), BU each
"minute" was only 15 seconds long in real time

That's No ~Exaggeration~! Holy COW, that was IMPRESSIVE! :) I am
dazzled by the awesome speed of this new SATA hard drive

I suspect my old IDE drive wasn't as fast as it coulda/shoulda hav
Click to expand...
been, (which may explain the huge difference). The only thing don't
like is that my new WD SATA hard drive isn't totally silent like th
Click to expand...
dear old Seagate HD was. It's _quiet_, but not silent

FYI

My own personal computer is a homebuilt: Lian Li aluminum case, MS K8N
Neo4 motherboard, AMD Athlon 64 4000+ (ClawHammer 1GHz FSB 1MB L Cache
Socket 939) CPU . I have a gigabyte of Patriot "Extreme Performance DDR
400 RAM. For video I chose an ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon X600Pro
(PCI-express, 256MB). My PC also has a 250 gigabyte (7500 RPM Western
Digital SATA hard drive, and a Seagate 120 Gigabyte 7200 RPM EIDE H
Click to expand...
(dual-booting WinXP Pro SP2 and SuSE Linux 9.0), a NEC DVD-RW drive an
RCA cable modem, and a TEAC floppy drive. I use a spectcular ~19"
Viewsonic VP191B~ LCD display. I love my flexible, washable Mini-VIK
"Virtually indestructible keyboard", and my ergonomic ~Evoluen Vertical
Mouse~

My favorite things: My awesome new HD, my incredible LCD monitor and
my heaven-blessed ergonomic vertical mouse
Click to expand...

Well, it's nice to hear from someone without a problem for a change!
LO

Yes, SATA's are very nice. I run a dual RAID 1 on four Maxtor Diamon
Max SATA's. They're smok'n fast. You should see a Via SATA chipse
format, in DOS, an 80 gig drive in 7 seconds. The first time I di
that, I had to do it again because I thought I did something wrong.
LO

By the way, if your drives and your solution both support SATA 2?
Disable it! SATA 2 is a server solution and the overhead will slow
home system down. That is, unless you query 10 thousand medica
records from your home

Cheers
 
In message <[email protected]>
By the way, if your drives and your solution both support SATA 2?
Disable it! SATA 2 is a server solution and the overhead will slow a
home system down. That is, unless you query 10 thousand medical
records from your home.
Click to expand...

Doesn't everybody?
 
Jan Alter said:
Jan Alter
(e-mail address removed)
or
(e-mail address removed)12.pa.us



It's interesting to read your impressions. Last week I also had built an AMD
64 3000+ socket 939 on a Biostar board using a WD 250 gb SATA drive and
was surprised when XP w/SP2 immediately recognized the drive without having
to load any drivers at all. I posed that question to the NG and got three
different answers: that winxP SP2 had the drivers on it, that the bios was
able to emulate a SCSI drive installation, and the third response was simply
that some boards don't require it (which sounds something like, "It's
magic"). My own guess is that the SATA driver is now being loaded into the
cmos of newer drivers to allow XP recognition on installation.
Click to expand...
It IS XPsp2 and the fact that it comes with native sata drivers.
 
ToolPackinMama said:
You know, come to think of it, I had the SATA drivers floppy in place, but
I don't remember the FDD being accessed.
Click to expand...

If you didn't have to do the F6 thing, it probably didn't. My original XP
Pro SP1 disk recognizes SATA just like an IDE drive even before I install
SP2 after install. I have 2 WD SATA drives and 2 Maxtor SATA drives and all
have 16mb caches. The WDs seem to outperform the Maxtors in the few
benchmarks I have done. Glad everything went well. Have a good Turkey
Day.......

Ed
 
Check that link again. I just did and it's still a 250 Gb drive with an 8 mb
cache that's being offered. Glad you found what you wanted.
 
Dick Lewis said:
Thanks, Jan, but that's a SATA 150 with 8mb cache. Reread
ToolPackinMama's original post and she got a 16mb cache, but
didn't mention if it was SATA I or SATA II.
Click to expand...

Your question might have been more easily understood and answered if
you had replied under the post you were referring to. The text is
right up there, may as well use it.
 
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