Maxtor SATA?

[atye]

Is it true that SATA isn't significantly faster than older technology? A few reviews I've seen of the new Maxtors seem to disagree. Here's one....

envynews

They compare a Maxtor to a Seagate SATA plus two PATAs. They say the Seagate is only slightly faster than PATA, but the Maxtor is alot faster. Are they just exagerrating?

Thanks
Andy Tye

 

[InlineFive]

The old ATA bus wasn't saturated by hard drives anyway. And the drives still can't use up all of the bandwidth SATA has to offer. All of this boils down to hard drives not being fast enough. The only reason you will see the Raptor performing better is because it has 10k RPM and numerous other enhancements. Despite still using a native PATA chip which is adapted to a SATA signal onboard.

-Por

 

[Looney]

If that's so then why aren't there any 10k rpm PATA drives? Surely it would have been good marketting to make it available if it was possible, since not everybody has SATA capable boards.

 

[Atlantean]

check the date on that review march 8 2003... I doubt that there is that much of a difference between the speed of a maxtor and the speed of any other. Look up some more current reviews.

 

[Atlantean]

dp

 

[EeyoreX]

If that's so then why aren't there any 10k rpm PATA drives? Surely it would have been good marketting to make it available if it was possible, since not everybody has SATA capable boards.

The Raptor is the first 10k consumer-level hard drive. And it's argueable as to whether or not it really is consumer-level. in any event, as the first (and currently only) of it's kind (AFAIK) it would be silly to start manufacturing PATA drives with 10k rotation speeds. The push is to SATA, and everyone is claiming it will replace PATA in the near future. If that is the case, why start making new 10k PATA drives?

In any event, SATA has a higher theoretical speed, currently 150MB/s. The fact is that current hard drives (including the Raptor) can not supply that much data at one time. The mechanics simply do not allow it. I think sustainted rates for the new 74GB Raptor (reviewed as the fastest ATA drive to date) are at or around 60-70MB/s. Think about that. That is barely above the years-old ATA66 technology speeds. All with a bus that allows for 150MB/s. And SATA II will bump that up to 300MB/s. The bottom line is that until drive technology changes, these speeds will never be acheived. The only reason drives built with current design basics will get faster is higher rotational speeds and platters that get more and more dense, packing more data into less space.

\Dan

 

[atye]

Then what is causing the Maxtor SATA in this test to perform so much better than even another SATA? I understand it can only spin so fast (7200rpm, same as the Seagate). So what is the difference in apparent speed? Are the internals set up in such a way as to remove certain speed obstacles present in the Seagate? Was it a fluke? Was this particular review "fixed"? Or is the data not really as impressive as the reviewer makes it out to be?

I was all ready to grab a couple of these Maxtors after reading it, but maybe I should just stick with parallel until something better comes out. What do you think?

Thanks
Andy Tye

 

[EeyoreX]

I think I would head to Storage Review or elsewhere and try to find a more recent review, as was suggested. The one you refer to is nearly a year out of date, and probably not as impressive (or impressive sounding) as it was then. The drive could have been faster for something as simple as platters that were more dense than the Seagate drive. Again, I'd try finding a review that isn't so out-dated.

\Dan