SATA Hard drive thread

[Charles Wirth]

I just ordered a couple of these for $152 each off pricewatch.

http://store.westerndigital.com/product.asp?sku=1496302

Western Digital SATA-150
8MB cache
10,000 RPM rotational disk speed
5.2 ms average data seek time
1.2 million hour MTBF at 100% duty cycle

I also seen the Seagate 80GB SATA drives for a little less but no where near the spec on the WD.

Benchmarks tomorrow.

I expect 70k~100k sandra bench.

What other SATA drives are out there and post some benchies!!!

[felix88]

where did you get them from? pricewatch isn't a store. ;)

i generally shop at hypermicro, but it sounds like you got a pretty good deal. hopefully they are the retail drives with a 5 year warranty.

[Charles Wirth]

Not that I wanted to give any vendor credit, but DLJ systems had them in stock and shipped the same day.

They will be here tomorrow.

If you are in a pinch late in the afternoon to get items shipped same day, DLJ can get it done if the part is in stock.

[felix88]

i'll have to check them out. thanks. :)

as far as i know, the only SATA drives available at the moment are the Seagate Cuda V and WD360GD drives. Maxtor has one in the works, but i don't know if it's available yet.

[deathstar13]

http://www.theforumisdown.com/uploadfiles/0103/atto%20raid%20bench.jpg
http://www.theforumisdown.com/uploadfiles/0103/sandra%20raid%20bench.jpg

i think 70000-100000 is a bit much to expect tho.still a large performance leap over 7200 drives.
also the controller seems to be the big link to higher scores.i may have to get another one besides this SI controller.

btw thats 2xraptors in raid0 on my nf7-s rev2

btw they are not as quiet at my wd 200BB's were. not horribaly loud just noticable.especially since i run no side panel.

[Charles Wirth]

Your sandra seems low compared to some of the other SATA benches I have seen on Canterwood. My drives are here and will be loaded tonight.

Whats with the power connectors?

I have power adapters for the flat wide power and also the standard 4 pin molex? any advantage to using the power adapters?

[felix88]

the adapters allow for hot swap, but i don't know of the current drives do.

[CCW]

"5.2 ms average data seek time "

wow! didnt think S-ATA drives would be having seek times that fast :D

[deathstar13]

ive seen other controllers getting better scores than my set up yes.thats why ive stated the silicon image sux.

i did run a sandra bench a minute ago and it did 64500
just lagging an intel controller a bit.

i dont think gaining 4000 points by spending $100 is worth buying a differant controller.
unless the corruptions still hit then ill buy something else.
alot of performance loss is due to SI and all there dumb fixes.when i first ran it on win2kpro and my 7200 wd 200bb's in sata raid0 with adaptors i was doing 56000
after they did all the fixs to try and stop corruptions it dropped to 42000 about par for ide raid.

but 66000 sandra scores is fast and its a really noticable increase in the complete pc's speeds.

anyone who says raid0 is useless on a home pc has never used it.

i just used the molex connectors on mine.the ribbon cable is needed on the seagates im almost sure.theramal take has now released a psu with sata power connections.its the first out i think.

[felix88]

Originally posted by CCW
"5.2 ms average data seek time "

wow! didnt think S-ATA drives would be having seek times that fast :D

the low seek time is a benifit of the drive spinning at 10k.

[Mtgoat]

deathstar13
What PCI latency are you using for the controller?

I have one of the HPT RocketRaid 1520 SATA controllers but just WD1000JB's hooked up to it and compared it to the SI controller with the same drives. The difference is 9800 Sandra and 13,000 ATTO. I would say that's a pretty fair diff! My HPT 1520 likes 200 latency and the SI liked the max of 248. Your drives probably don't need as much though.

[deathstar13]

pci latency? hmmm new terms ive never heard.
can ya fill me in? and where to find it to change it?

im thinking if my scores dont go up im just buying the promise sata raid card.

also if this pci latency is in the raid setup section wouldnt that destroy my array and couse a reinstall if i made changes?

and those scores you just stated were on jb's? even on raptors thats a nice score.

"edit"
well i did a little researching on that and found the setting in my mobo bios.unfortunatly i didnt gain much by increasing it to 255.

looks like its newegg time again

[Charles Wirth]

65K was the best I pulled, I guess I will have to be happy with 4ms access time (http://fugger.netfirms.com/65k.jpg).

This is from a pair of WD Raptor 10K RPM drives on a IC7 SATA RAID 0

They are nice and quiet compared to other 10K drives. I am happy.

[Mtgoat]

The easiest way I know of and what I use is "Powerstrip". Download powerstrip Here (http://www.entechtaiwan.com/ps.htm) if you don't have it and do as follows:

*Open and set to open with Windows
*In the taskbar righclick the icon and move to "options" and when new menu opens select "Adapter Information"
*In the blue stripe 2/3 of the way down
UNCHECK THE BOX where it says"Read Only"
*Next scroll through the devices at the top till you get to your Raid controller.
*Then in the window close to the center where it says "Latency" adjust to where you want.
*When you click "Apply" you will get the usual type box about system changes-click "YES"
*You will get another box asking if you want Powerstrip to apply the changes eachtime "Powerstrip" starts-SELECT NO FOR NOW but when you find what you want select yes.

You should try everything to find the sweet spot. A lot of controllers like the higher numbers and my HPT likes 200 on this board with these drives. My last few boards were 248.

Here is something to help. I also give all the credit to a wise Texan that showed me how to do this as well as many others. HERE is a his guide to help too. (http://www.digitalferret.com/sections.php?name=Guides&rop=showcontent&id=3)

[Evil_Spork]

last i checked isnt having more "cable" bandwidth rahter useless if the hdd cant read/write that fast?