HDtune reports 100MB/sec burst rate - low?

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,229
9,990
126
System has a Foxconn 780G mobo in it, unsure what southbridge, probably not the 710 or 750.

SATA II HD WD Caviar Green 1TB

Why are my burst rates so slow? That's like IDE speeds.

I think the bios is set to "Native IDE" mode for the SATA ports, as opposed to "Legacy IDE", "AHCI", and "RAID".

Is the ATI southbridge really THAT bad? Shouldn't my burst rates be 150MB/sec or higher? (Theoretical max is 300, right?)
 

Soulkeeper

Diamond Member
Nov 23, 2001
6,712
142
106
those results seem inline with most of the reviews i've seen online for that drive. Note that the drive is running at 5400rpm and not all the test is coming from the buffer
 

Rifter

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
11,522
751
126
Yeah thats about what my 5900rpm seagate LP's are getting me. 7200rpm drives are a little faster but not alot. And there was never a IDE that was that fast that i know of unless maybe the WD raptors were that fast but they were way to expensive for the price/performance IMO. If you want faster you are going to have to step up to a RAID 0 setup or SSD, both will be alot more money but if you need the speed you have no choice. Also the drives arnt any faster on intel i dont know why you think the AMD chipset sucks.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,229
9,990
126
I think you guys missed the point that I wasn't talking about platter transfer rates, I was talking about burst transfer rates, which are purely between the cache buffer on the drive and the controller chip on the motherboard. They should be close to the theoretical max of the interface transfer rate,

Unless HDTune's burst transfer rate test is faulty. This drive only has 8MB cache.

Edit: see this article
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/739/3

All of the 1TB HDs listed have over 200MB/sec burst rates.
 
Last edited:

tcsenter

Lifer
Sep 7, 2001
18,338
253
126
HDTune's burst rate test is flawed. Use HDTach for burst rate. Its the only utility I'm aware of where the coder understands the meaning and purpose of an interface test.
 

Rifter

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
11,522
751
126
yeah i missed the cache part, thats what i get for reading this at the end of a 12 hour shift. as mentioned use HD tach.
 

RebateMonger

Elite Member
Dec 24, 2005
11,588
0
0
For some reason, with HDTune 2.55 I'm getting low burst rates on my WD Green 2 TB disk, too. It's lower than the maximum transfer rate. Mine's hooked up to a PCI-E Silicon Image eSATA disk controller card. That wasn't the case with my Hitachi 7200 rpm 1 TB disks.