how can you validate your SATA-II (SATA3G) speeds?

[Toadster]

i ran si-soft sandra and got a 55MB/s speed test on my Hitachi 500GB drive...

is there a BIOS setting or RAID setup (with 2 drives) to increase speeds?

 

[stevty2889]

There is no mechanical hard drive that can fully utilize the SATA 3G interface. The drives really aren't much faster than ATA100 or SATA 150. Raid-0 will give you a higher sustained rate, but if one drive fails, all the data is lost, and in most cases, the benifit is slim to none in a desktop environment.

 

[Toadster]

true, but shouldn't a SATA-II HD push more than 55MB/s?

 

[stevty2889]

Not really, they have the same physical limitations as other drives. My SATA II drives all average around 55mb/s sustained as well.

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

SATA II just has higher max bandwidth. It doesn't mean that the drive can actually go anywhere near that speed though. There's no way to like "overclock" a hard drive to make it spin faster.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Ok, SATA II means your burst speeds *COULD* hit 3 gbps. Go run a speed test in Windows (use device manager adn select ur SATa/IDE controller and find the drive). They will show you a burst test speed. As well as an average speed.

If you want more accurate tests, get HD Tach and run a sequential transfer test. you can see the burst speed and you'll know if you're in SATA I or SATA II mode...

 

[zest]

Originally posted by: DLeRium
Ok, SATA II means your burst speeds *COULD* hit 3 gbps. Go run a speed test in Windows (use device manager adn select ur SATa/IDE controller and find the drive). They will show you a burst test speed. As well as an average speed.

If you want more accurate tests, get HD Tach and run a sequential transfer test. you can see the burst speed and you'll know if you're in SATA I or SATA II mode...

Hitach SATA 2 and and some WD drive are capable of sustained 3 gbp.

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: zest

Originally posted by: DLeRium
Ok, SATA II means your burst speeds *COULD* hit 3 gbps. Go run a speed test in Windows (use device manager adn select ur SATa/IDE controller and find the drive). They will show you a burst test speed. As well as an average speed.

If you want more accurate tests, get HD Tach and run a sequential transfer test. you can see the burst speed and you'll know if you're in SATA I or SATA II mode...

Hitach SATA 2 and and some WD drive are capable of sustained 3 gbp.

please link

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

Originally posted by: zest

Originally posted by: DLeRium
Ok, SATA II means your burst speeds *COULD* hit 3 gbps. Go run a speed test in Windows (use device manager adn select ur SATa/IDE controller and find the drive). They will show you a burst test speed. As well as an average speed.

If you want more accurate tests, get HD Tach and run a sequential transfer test. you can see the burst speed and you'll know if you're in SATA I or SATA II mode...

Hitach SATA 2 and and some WD drive are capable of sustained 3 gbp.

It'll be years before we have drives that fast...

 

[Rangoric]

Originally posted by: t3h l337 n3wb

Originally posted by: zest

Originally posted by: DLeRium
Ok, SATA II means your burst speeds *COULD* hit 3 gbps. Go run a speed test in Windows (use device manager adn select ur SATa/IDE controller and find the drive). They will show you a burst test speed. As well as an average speed.

If you want more accurate tests, get HD Tach and run a sequential transfer test. you can see the burst speed and you'll know if you're in SATA I or SATA II mode...

Hitach SATA 2 and and some WD drive are capable of sustained 3 gbp.

It'll be years before we have drives that fast...

Because people care more about the size than the speed.

Notice how quickly they get bigger, while the poor Raptors and other speedy drives tend to be smaller.

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

Actually, bigger drivers = denser platters = faster drives. So bigger drives tend to be faster than smaller ones (if they're both spinning at the same speed of course).

 

[Toadster]

Originally posted by: zest

Originally posted by: DLeRium
Ok, SATA II means your burst speeds *COULD* hit 3 gbps. Go run a speed test in Windows (use device manager adn select ur SATa/IDE controller and find the drive). They will show you a burst test speed. As well as an average speed.

If you want more accurate tests, get HD Tach and run a sequential transfer test. you can see the burst speed and you'll know if you're in SATA I or SATA II mode...

Hitach SATA 2 and and some WD drive are capable of sustained 3 gbp.

i have 2 hitachi 500GB SATA-2 drives... where's your data showing 3gbp?

 

[tcsenter]

What does SATA II mean?

Perhaps it's better to tell you what it doesn't mean. It does not mean you're absolutely getting a SATA 3Gb/s drive.

Seagate Primer on SATA II

 

[krotchy]

FYI, I have 8 Seagate 7200.9 hard drives in RAID 0 using a hardware SATA raid controller, (much better than mobo's software raid), and my sustained transfer rate is roughtly 200 mB/s. That is with 128k Stripes, Write back and pretty much optimal speeds. Even then 8 hard drives working simultaneously doesnt reach SATA II speeds and they all have their own dedicated SATAII channel.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: zest

Originally posted by: DLeRium
Ok, SATA II means your burst speeds *COULD* hit 3 gbps. Go run a speed test in Windows (use device manager adn select ur SATa/IDE controller and find the drive). They will show you a burst test speed. As well as an average speed.

If you want more accurate tests, get HD Tach and run a sequential transfer test. you can see the burst speed and you'll know if you're in SATA I or SATA II mode...

Hitach SATA 2 and and some WD drive are capable of sustained 3 gbp.

that was good for a good laugh read, learn and then make a comment

 

[Toadster]

Originally posted by: t3h l337 n3wb
Actually, bigger drivers = denser platters = faster drives. So bigger drives tend to be faster than smaller ones (if they're both spinning at the same speed of course).

very true, the 750GB drives are now touting 4ms access rates !!!!

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: Toadster

Originally posted by: t3h l337 n3wb
Actually, bigger drivers = denser platters = faster drives. So bigger drives tend to be faster than smaller ones (if they're both spinning at the same speed of course).

very true, the 750GB drives are now touting 4ms access rates !!!!

where are you seeing this?

 

[GamingDaemon]

So if I just built a rig with 2 Western Digital SATA II drives, what should I expect in terms of sustained transfer rates?

 

[zest]

Here my WD drives....
http://www.jpghosting.com/showpic.php?i...h_b3a21d3c1fbbc0b94c475676425f882b.jpg
c: Raptor D: SE16250 E: SE16 320

Curious! The 320 scores better than the 250.!

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Originally posted by: zest
Here my WD drives....
http://www.jpghosting.com/showpic.php?i...h_b3a21d3c1fbbc0b94c475676425f882b.jpg
c: Raptor D: SE16250 E: SE16 320

Curious! The 320 scores better than the 250.!

Uhhh this test is not that good. I suggest you do sequential read tests...

Originally posted by: PurdueRy

Originally posted by: zest

Originally posted by: DLeRium
Ok, SATA II means your burst speeds *COULD* hit 3 gbps. Go run a speed test in Windows (use device manager adn select ur SATa/IDE controller and find the drive). They will show you a burst test speed. As well as an average speed.

If you want more accurate tests, get HD Tach and run a sequential transfer test. you can see the burst speed and you'll know if you're in SATA I or SATA II mode...

Hitach SATA 2 and and some WD drive are capable of sustained 3 gbp.

please link

Impossible for sustained 3gbp. Please learn about hard drives.

http://www.atotchat.org/~montavis/dmo/comp/raptorvs7200.9.jpg

Single 7200.9 and Single Raptor. If you RAID-0 7200.9s, you might hit around 120?
RAID the raptors, and you'll hit 130ish?

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: GamingDaemon
So if I just built a rig with 2 Western Digital SATA II drives, what should I expect in terms of sustained transfer rates?

sustained transfer of large files without a lot of seeking i would probably say between 50-60MB/s with 7.2k, 60-70 w/ 10K and 70+ with 15K

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: zest
Here my WD drives....
http://www.jpghosting.com/showpic.php?i...h_b3a21d3c1fbbc0b94c475676425f882b.jpg
c: Raptor D: SE16250 E: SE16 320

Curious! The 320 scores better than the 250.!

that program seems a little "happy"......i got a drive score of 12971 with my 10K scsi hdd....

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: Toadster
shouldn't a SATA-II HD push more than 55MB/s?

SATA II is not necessarily 3.0 Gb/s, but the whole thing's pretty confusing.

http://anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2450

If you have a 3.0 Gb/s drive, you should be able to measure a burst speed > 150 MB/s to check your interface speed. HDTach can be used to measure the burst speed as well as the sequential transfer rate over the drive.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: Toadster

Originally posted by: t3h l337 n3wb
Actually, bigger drivers = denser platters = faster drives. So bigger drives tend to be faster than smaller ones (if they're both spinning at the same speed of course).

very true, the 750GB drives are now touting 4ms access rates !!!!

could you please show me the docs that claim the 750GB drives are getting 4ms access rates.......

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: Toadster

Originally posted by: t3h l337 n3wb
Actually, bigger drivers = denser platters = faster drives. So bigger drives tend to be faster than smaller ones (if they're both spinning at the same speed of course).

very true, the 750GB drives are now touting 4ms access rates !!!!

could you please show me the docs that claim the 750GB drives are getting 4ms access rates.......

*sigh* People these days.

Those are 4ms latency times, not seek times

It's been the same for some time now:

7200.7 - http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/datasheet/disc/ds_barracuda7200.7.pdf
7200.8 - http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/datasheet/disc/ds_barracuda7200.8.pdf
7200.9 - http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/datasheet/disc/ds_barracuda_7200_9.pdf
7200.10 - http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/datasheet/disc/ds_barracuda_7200_10.pdf

Seek times are at 8ms or 8.5ms still?

Bigger does not mean denser. A lot of crap drives like the 7K500 and those monstrous WD drives aren't that fast simply because of pathetic platter density. Seagate definitely tries to push out huge drives with giant platters.

With the 7200.9 series, the 500gb drive used 125gb platters while the 160gb used 160gb platters.

The 7200.8 featured 133gb platters for the 250gb drive, meaning its a short-stroked drive. Technically that should make it faster than a 7200.8 400gb (the other 133gb platter drive), and given the speed similarity between the 7200.8 and 7200.9 series, the 250gb 7200.8 could've easily beaten some 7200.9 drives.

That said, Seagate did start making 125gb platters, so later 250gb models used 2x125gb platters. Bottom line is you need to know what kind of drive you have.

IF you look at some benchmarks, you will see people with the new 7200.10 320gb drive. Some people have the short stroked version, while others do not...