Is my Hard Drive Running in SATA2??

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Tom's Hardware UK and Ireland Forums » Storage » Hard Disks » Is my Hard Drive Running in SATA2??

Is my Hard Drive Running in SATA2??

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Author	Thread : Is my Hard Drive Running in SATA2??

Witt78

Profile: journeyman

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07-23-2008 at 08:54:07 PM

My new system just arrived. I constructed the PC and installed / configured Windows Vista Home Premium.

Now I'm doing benchmards and such...

HD Tune states the following.

Drive Standard : ATA/ATAPI-8 - SATA II
Suported : UDMA Mode 6 - (Ultra ATA/133)
Active : UDMA Mode 5 - (Ultra ATA/100)

-------------------------

This thing is running as if it were an IDE drive?? I think there was a setting in my bios that treated SATA Drives "As IDE"... I can change it to RAID or AHCI.

That's not right is it?

Not confident I know what I'm doing with this. I've never used SATA before... Please advise...

- Witt

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jeb1517

Profile: enthusiast

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07-23-2008 at 09:06:07 PM

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Paperdoc wrote :

Your mobo offers to handle the real SATA II HDD in one of three ways. It can make it appear to the OS as if it were an IDE drive, which means among other things you will not have to worry about providing SATA drivers for the OS to use the drive. That is what you have done already, and it works. This does NOT mean that you have lost any SATA II performance. The other choices are to use the AHCI option, which would require some adjustment to load the appropriate drivers, as SomeJoe7777 says, or to use your drive as part of a RAID array, which it seems you don't want (and I agree you don't need RAID!)

Bottom line is, you are already getting most of what SATA II offers, with a few possible exceptions. (SomeJoe7777 may be able to clarify that part.) So probably you do not need to change anything.

Quoted from another thread but I think it applies here also. Your OS thinks its an IDE drive but data transfer is at SATA II speeds I believe.

skittle

Profile: nimble knuckle

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07-23-2008 at 09:33:31 PM

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Note: HDD transfer rates will not get anywhere close to SATA150 or SATA300 peak speeds.

AHCI only enables a couple of mostly useless features. Probably best to keep it in IDE mode.

Message quoted 1 times

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macgirlfriend:
"Hey I don't get you people, the people on insanely mac were so much nicer"

Witt78

Profile: journeyman

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07-23-2008 at 09:47:34 PM

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skittle wrote :

Note: HDD transfer rates will not get anywhere close to SATA150 or SATA300 peak speeds.

AHCI only enables a couple of mostly useless features. Probably best to keep it in IDE mode.

What is considered a good transfer rate for an SATA2 drive?

I am using a Western Digital Caviar... 640Gb @ 7200RPM. SATA2/3.0 Gb per Second.

Just give me a "Ball Park" figure...

Acording to my HD Tune 2.55 bench test, I am seeing....

Lowest ==> 49.1 meg/sec

Highest ==> 111.0 meg/sec

Average ==> 88.8 Meg/sec

Burst ==> 137.5 Meg/sec

Access Time ==> 12.1ms

Please advise...

- Witt

Message quoted 2 times

skittle

Profile: nimble knuckle

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07-23-2008 at 09:49:39 PM

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I dont know exact figures off hand, google does though.

But those numbers sound very very good. My old seagate averages around 55mbs.

---------------
macgirlfriend:
"Hey I don't get you people, the people on insanely mac were so much nicer"

50bmg

Profile: addict

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07-23-2008 at 10:16:37 PM

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I just installed a Seagate 500G SATA II. I had my SATA 1.5G for 4 years. So i am a little rusty with HD setup.

How do i know that i am getting the most out of my drive? The bios of my Gigabyte GA-EX38-DS4 sees it as a IDE. I am not really sure if i have it set up correctly.

Message quoted 1 times

rozar

Profile: enthusiast

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07-23-2008 at 10:23:29 PM

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Please read here for more definition of "SATA 2"

http://www.serialata.org/6gbnamingguidelines.asp

Message quoted 1 times

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Paperdoc

Profile: enthusiast

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07-23-2008 at 10:37:52 PM

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To Witt78 et al: those speeds look very good to me. I have'nt looked closely recently, but I recall AVERAGE throughput on a SATA II drive in the range 35 to 80MB/s (that's bytes, not bits) over a long multi-file transfer task. Peak is much faster, but happens only for short poriods.

ausch30

Profile: Honorary Poster

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07-23-2008 at 10:47:59 PM

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Witt78 wrote :

Just to give you something to reference it against I just ran HD Tune with my Seagate 7200.11 500gb and I got
Min-51.2
Max-106
Avg-84.7
Access-12.3
Burst-196.5
CPU usage-2.0

Message edited by ausch30 on 07-23-2008 at 10:48:22 PM

---------------

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
-Aristotle

Witt78

Profile: journeyman

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07-24-2008 at 05:23:36 AM

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rozar wrote :

Please read here for more definition of "SATA 2"

http://www.serialata.org/6gbnamingguidelines.asp

rozar wrote :

Just to give you something to reference it against I just ran HD Tune with my Seagate 7200.11 500gb and I got
Min-51.2
Max-106
Avg-84.7
Access-12.3
Burst-196.5
CPU usage-2.0

Priceless information guys... You guys are a huge help on a daily basis! I always get good info to re-learn what I have fallen behind on. (I have not built a computer in 8 or 10 years.) (The last PC I built was a Pentium 3 @ 500Mhz. :non: )

If it wasn't for you guys, I don't know if I could ever "Un-Noob" myself! :wahoo:

- Witt

Witt78

Profile: journeyman

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07-24-2008 at 05:31:59 AM

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50bmg wrote :

HD Tune states the following.

Drive Standard : ATA/ATAPI-8 - SATA IIhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA
Suported : UDMA Mode 6 - (Ultra ATA/133)
Active : UDMA Mode 5 - (Ultra ATA/100)

-------------------------

This thing is running as if it were an IDE drive?? I think there was a setting in my bios that treated SATA Drives "As IDE"... I can change it to RAID or AHCI.

That's not right is it?

Read both the quotes above... It sounds to me like your drive should be fine. To make sure... Download "HD Tune" (Just Google it) and run a benchmark test on your hard drive. Then compare your results with the numbers talked about in this forum thread.

If your numbers are anywhere close to ours, you should be set up correctly.

- Witt

PS - HD Tune will give you drive performance that looks like this...

50bmg wrote :

Just to give you something to reference it against I just ran HD Tune with my Seagate 7200.11 500gb and I got
Min-51.2
Max-106
Avg-84.7
Access-12.3
Burst-196.5
CPU usage-2.0

50bmg

Profile: addict

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07-24-2008 at 03:09:19 PM

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right on.

I ran HDTune. I didnt record the results, but i remember a few.
Avg - 82
access - 12.7
Burst - 197
CPU usage - 1.9

Message edited by 50bmg on 07-24-2008 at 03:10:29 PM

RetiredChief

Profile: addict

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07-24-2008 at 08:50:50 PM

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Just downloaded an ran HD Tune on Raid0 Added - HD = 2 x Seagate 320 G 7200.10) 2nd edit, Added 2nd raid0 setup (Samsung SP2504C) Same computer.
Seagate Samsung
Min - 70.1 MB/S ------------ 73.3 MB/s
Max - 147.2 MB/S --------- 109.3 Mb/s
Avg - 117.8 MB/S --------- 93.2 Mb/s

Access Time - 12.9 mS ---- 14.3 mS
Burst - 152 MB/S ----------- 103.6 Mb/s
CPU Usage 3.4% ---------- 4.3 %

Message edited by RetiredChief on 07-26-2008 at 04:11:27 PM

50bmg

Profile: addict

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07-25-2008 at 12:40:06 AM

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i just ran HDTune on my 250G sata 150 and compare to my sataII above.

avg - 55
access - 15.8
cpu usage - 7.1

Wow, the sataII is ~33% faster. Evan with the bios seeing it as an IDE.

I need to learn about Raid. I had no luck running it as Raid in my bios.

Crashman

Profile: Tom's Hardware Team

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07-25-2008 at 03:20:39 AM