SATA HDD Speed

[Mike]

Hi,

I have a Seagate 120GB SATA HDD on a Gigabyte 8PENXP MoBo.

Windows XP reports its transfer rate as Ultra DMA 5. Yet the HDD is capable
of UDMA6. How can I get windows to recognise this faster rate?
(or is this normal for a sata hdd)

best wishes,
mike

 

[Carl]

Hi Mike
That is what my Segate 120 SATA drive runs at to.I think this is normal
untill there is a demand for it to run faster then it can.
I have a DFI Lanparty 865PE HyperthreadingCapable board.Running Intel 2.4
CPU. 1GIG memory.

 

[Mike]

Hi Carl,

I use http://www.hdtune.com/ to tell me these figures.

I get below average results. And the drive does indeed report it is running
below its maximum transfer rate. I can't help feel this is a Windows XP
issue?

best wishes
Mike

 

[Nathan McNulty]

Actually, the problem is not Windows at all. It is the hard drive. My
Seagate SATA 160GB Drive runs at DMA Mode 5 as well. The max is DMA
Mode 6 also. If you haven't noticed yet, your hard drive is not capable
of reaching over even 80 MB/s (unless set up in RAID). DMA Mode 5 is
100 MB/s. The internal speed of your hard disk is way under the
transfer speed of DMA Mode 5. All you are going to get even if you
could force Windows to say DMA Mode 6 is just that. The pleasure of
seeing it say DMA Mode 6. There will be no difference in the way the
computer sees the drive or performs.

 

[Mike]

Thanks Nathan. All valid points that clarify some things for me.

 

[Mike]

I did manage to get it connected at udma 6. Plugged the port in runs from
on my mobo to the silicon image one.. works a treat now