SATA2 drive running in SATA1 mode

[Cuatro]

I recently found out my notebook (HP 8510w) hard drive is operating in SATA-1 mode when both it (Seagate ST9200420AS) and the chipset (ICH8M) support SATA-2.

In my search for a solution I have come across discussion of AHCI, but as far as I can tell this is enabled. In the BIOS “SATA Native Mode” is enabled, which I think is necessary to enable it. Furthermore, I installed Intel matrix storage console and the HD shows up under “Intel ICH8M SATA AHCI Controller” on port 0. In this program the ‘current serial ATA transfer mode’ is reported as ‘generation 1’ . I get similar readouts in other programs like HDDScan: “SATA Gen2 3.0 Gb/s: Not Supported”.

I checked the disk, the SATA-1 mode jumpers are not present.

Anyone have any ideas?

This is not a major issue at the moment with the current drive, but I was looking at getting an SSD for which I am sure (at least) SATA2 will be a necessity.

Thanks.

 

[Coup27]

It is not unheard of for OEMs to throttle back the SATA interface for needs elsewhere.

My old ThinkPad T60 did this. The hard drive was foced to operate at 1.5Gbps speeds because the ultrabay dock accessories did not support 3Gbps and as SSDs were nowhere to be seen, they limited the hard drive to 1.5Gbps.

If you have already looked in the BIOS and there is not an option to specify the SATA transfer rate then I think you're stuck.

You will still see a big improvement with an SSD in the system even in 1.5Gbps mode. My Dell has an ICH7M which is only 1.5Gbps but it's still a big deal faster than the hard drive I removed. SSDs are all about latency, access times and random reading/writing, none of which will be affected by being in 1.5Gbps mode.

Edit: Please go back into the BIOS and click on the "SATA native mode" option and post back all of the available options for that.

 

[Cuatro]

Thanks for the prompt reply.


I have seen posts of people complaining about such a limitation with the T61, but in the same thread someone mentioned the 8510w has no such limit. Actually I have also seen someone report speeds of 200 mb/s after installing an SSD into this notebook. I can't be sure, but I don't expect this to be the case here.

As for 'SATA native mode', it unfortunately has no sub-menu, it is either enabled or disabled.

 

[Coup27]

Unless there is an option in the BIOS I really don't think you have anything else you can do.

 

[ShintaiDK]

HDs cant even saturate SATA1. So unless you change to an SSD...

 

[Cuatro]

I am tempted, even more so after what you said Coup27 and also by the fact that the Samsung 830 256Gb is going pretty cheap locally at the moment (€169).


But I would like to be as sure as possible first, so if anyone else has any ideas...

 

[Phynaz]

Don't worry about it. Your ability to notice a difference between SATA 1 and SATA 2 is just about zero.

 

[Wall Street]

Actually I have also seen someone report speeds of 200 mb/s after installing an SSD into this notebook. I can't be sure, but I don't expect this to be the case here.

Just so you don't get confused, 200 MB/s (Mega BYTES) is about the same speed as 1.5 Gbps (Giga BITS).

1.5 Gbps * 1024 (Megs per Gig) / 8 (Bits per Byte) = 192 MB/s

 

[Cuatro]

Just so you don't get confused, 200 MB/s (Mega BYTES) is about the same speed as 1.5 Gbps (Giga BITS).

1.5 Gbps * 1024 (Megs per Gig) / 8 (Bits per Byte) = 192 MB/s

What about overhead? Isn't SATA-1 also known as SATA 150mb/s? (and SATA-2 300) ultimately for this reason?

 

[Cerb]

Just so you don't get confused, 200 MB/s (Mega BYTES) is about the same speed as 1.5 Gbps (Giga BITS).

1.5 Gbps * 1024 (Megs per Gig) / 8 (Bits per Byte) = 192 MB/s

Realistically, it's more like 130-140MB/s of actual data. Even peak, 200MB/s would need 3Gbps.

 

[Cuatro]

I just found this in the data sheet for my notebook:

These are supposedly the specs for the HD, but in my case this is a ST9200420AS (AS=SATA-2) so I get the feeling it is referring to the combined maximum speed for the notebook. Oh well, I guess it solves that mystery.

Thanks for the help.

 

[Coup27]

Unfortunately HP have castrated the SATA bandwidth to make life easier elsewhere in the laptop. Before SSDs came along nobody noticed and nobody cared because it made no odds on HDDs.

You should still put in an SSD though, the main benefits of an SSD will not be affected.

 

[Cuatro]

I just also found the product manual for my HD. Now things are getting confusing...

How you can achieve an I/O data transfer rate of 3Gb/s while only supporting SATA-1??

 

[Phynaz]

Drive can be configured for 3gbs fine. Controller can't.

Everyone has told you, don't worry about it. You will not notice the difference.

Edit: Oh I see what you are looking at. Weird, somebody made a mistake.

 

[Cuatro]

Just to update, I ended up getting the SSD. Thankfully my previous problems must have been related to the old drive. Beyond the rather low (but not unusual) 4K speeds and a weirdly high but likely erroneous 4K64 read speed the SSD is clearly working in SATAII mode.

 

[BFG10K]

HDs cant even saturate SATA1...

Sure they can - quite a few HDDs can exceed 150MB/sec.

 

[Cuatro]

Unfortunately it seems I spoke too soon. After a week of using the SSD, something has gone very wrong:

I cancelled the 4K test as it was taking too long, but it was somewhere around 0.2 mb/s...

I took it back to where I got it and they gave me another but it did the same thing. As is discussed here, I think there is something with the 8510/8710 series of HP notebooks and these Samsung SSDs.