Serial ATA and ATA Performance Improvement on Dell 400SC

[AndrewC]

Hello group.

Since I'm not a fan of long posts I'll be brief.

I have a Dell 400SC with two ATA IDE HDs, primary and slave, on the
motherboard standard controller. Copying large files between the
drives is taking way too long.

The motherboard has two SATA ports in addition to the ATA I have my
drives hooked up to. Does anyone know two things:
1. If I purchase a SATA drive will it likely be faster than my master
ATA drive?
2. If I connect a new SATA and just one master ATA drive, will my data
transfer rates between drives be better? Does having the two drives
plugged affect total system performance in a negative fashion?

Thank you.

Andy

 

[Rod Speed]

Hello group.

Hello groupy.

Since I'm not a fan of long posts I'll be brief.

Just as long as you arent posting in your briefs.

I have a Dell 400SC with two ATA IDE HDs, primary and
slave, on the motherboard standard controller. Copying
large files between the drives is taking way too long.

The obvious question is why you copy large files
between drives enough for the time it takes to matter.

The motherboard has two SATA ports in addition to the ATA I
have my drives hooked up to. Does anyone know two things:

1. If I purchase a SATA drive will it likely
be faster than my master ATA drive?

Nope, the speed will be determined by the speed of the
slowest of the pair when copying from one to the other.

2. If I connect a new SATA and just one master ATA drive,
will my data transfer rates between drives be better?
Probably.

Does having the two drives plugged affect
total system performance in a negative fashion?

Nope. Its the use of them that matters.

 

[Bob Willard]

Hello group.

Since I'm not a fan of long posts I'll be brief.

I have a Dell 400SC with two ATA IDE HDs, primary and slave, on the
motherboard standard controller. Copying large files between the
drives is taking way too long.

The motherboard has two SATA ports in addition to the ATA I have my
drives hooked up to. Does anyone know two things:
1. If I purchase a SATA drive will it likely be faster than my master
ATA drive?
2. If I connect a new SATA and just one master ATA drive, will my data
transfer rates between drives be better? Does having the two drives
plugged affect total system performance in a negative fashion?

Thank you.

Andy

If the two HDs are on the same IDE cable, you should get better
performance by moving one HD to the other IDE cable. Try it.

 

[AndrewC]

Thank you Bob.

I have two options for the 2nd drive to move it as a slave.

1. Add PCI ATA IDE card and move slave to primary on that
2. Buy a new SATA drive and plug that into the SATA port on the
motherboard

Which do you recommend.

Andrew

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

If the two HDs are on the same IDE cable, you should get better
performance by moving one HD to the other IDE cable.

On dual sequential reads.
Not on filecopies from one to the other or dual sequential writes.
Except of course if the drives are faster than the channel can supply.

 

[Bob Willard]

Thank you Bob.

I have two options for the 2nd drive to move it as a slave.

1. Add PCI ATA IDE card and move slave to primary on that
2. Buy a new SATA drive and plug that into the SATA port on the
motherboard

Which do you recommend.

Andrew

Most PCs have two IDE ports (supporting 2 HDs per port), so it should
be a cheap (free) experiment to move one HD from the shared IDE cable
to the other IDE port; the max. cost should be a second IDE cable if
you don't already have one. I suggest this experiment first, since
it is not clear that spreading the HDs over two IDE cables will always
help.

One one PC, I did get a substantial boost in performance of HD-HD file
copying. Whether or not you will get a worthwhile boost depends on
many things, which is why I suggest a low-cost experiment first.