Cache on 750GB Seagate 7200.11

[SkyDiver]

Hi,

I just got a new 750GB Seagate 7200.11. I've heard that some of the drives are not utilizing the full 32MB cache. My product number is specifically one that Seagate says is NOT in need of an updated firmware.

I've tried to see what the system reports as my cache size, but HD Tune says "n/a" for "Buffer Size." It shows me 16MB for my Seagate 320 GB 7200.10.

Is there another way to identify the cache size? I tried SeaTools, but it doesn't report it (at least not that I could tell).

The response seems pretty good from the drive, but others have gotten better.
Here are the numbers from one run of HD Tune:

Max Transfer Rate: 100.7 MB/sec
Average Transfer: 76.1 MB/sec
Access Time: 13.0 ms
Burst Rate: 197.1 MB/sec
CPU Usage 2.8%

Thanks

 

[mikeuphill54]

This is probably a dumb question, but did you pull the jumper?

 

[SkyDiver]

Yes, I pulled the jumper that limits it to 150 GB (I think that was the old limit, right?) transfer rate.

 

[Golgatha]

Originally posted by: SkyDiver
Yes, I pulled the jumper that limits it to 150 GB (I think that was the old limit, right?) transfer rate.

Burst Rate: 197.1 MB/sec

Kinda hard to have a burst rate that high when your interface is limited to 150 MB/sec.

 

[Bad Dude]

I just bought 3X1TB drives, 7200.11 and each have a different firmware. One has SD04, one has SD14, and one has AD14. AD14 being the lastest one. The most recent one is SD15.
I was wondering if I can flash the SD15 to other drives with older BIOS.
Has any one tries this yet?

 

[ddarko]

There doesn't appear to be any way through software to confirm the 32mb cache size. I found a thread over at the Seagate forum that includes a response from the creator of HD Tune, who said that the ATA spec prevents buffer lengths of 32 mb and greater from being reported by the hard drive. Another user in the same thread said basically the only way to check is to read the markings off the RAM chips. Here's the thread:

http://forums.seagate.com/stx/...drives&message.id=1172

 

[SkyDiver]

Thanks ddarko,

That link pretty much sums it all up. I'm happy with the scores I'm getting from the drive. There was a curious incident when running HD Tune. Towards the end of the test, my transfer rates dropped down to 10-20 MB/Sec. I had indexing turned off and I shut down most other programs. I'm not sure why it did that--it lowered my overall score. (I've been working a lot, so haven't been able to repeat the test.)