WD360 Raptor shows UDMA5 on ICH5 SATA Controller - WHY???

[jhites]

I just installed a new WD360 Raptor on my P4C800 Dlx board and decided to use the SATA onboard controller. When I checked the hard drives with AIDA32 the Raptor only shows running active at UDMA5. I can't figure out why this would happen when using the ICH5 SATA on this board. I also have a Maxtor ATA133 8Mb cache running on the Promise 378 controller set to IDE mode and it shows running at UDMA6, which would be correct.

Using HDTach the Maxtor actually outperforms the Raptor in a couple of areas. Hard to believe that the Raptor connected to SATA does not just blow away the Maxtor connected to IDE.

Any ideas how to get the Raptor running up to speed?

 

[Accord99]

The 36GB Raptor is a native PATA device with a SATA bridge. UDMA6 is poorly supported standard with few drives other than Maxtor's own supporting it. Anyways UDMA5 is more than adequate to not bottleneck the Raptor. The Raptor's most valued attribute is its low disk access times which is unmatched by any other EIDE drive. While its disk transfer rates is very competitive, recent 7200rpm drives with high-density platters can beat the Raptor. However, access times are in general, the more important attribute for most users and the Raptor will perform better.

http://storagereview.com/php/benchmark/compare_rtg_2001.php?typeID=10&testbedID=3&osID=4&raidconfigID=1&numDrives=1&devID_0=249&devID_1=238&devCnt=2

 

[jhites]

Thanks for the information and the link. I did note that the access times for the Raptor in my tests were almost half of the Maxtor. It was the read/write speeds that had bothered me, as I thought they should be higher. According to that storagereview.com link, apparently that is not the case.

 

[jhites]

I still don't understand why a SATA drive of any type would not show using UDMA6, since it is supposedly ATA150. Anyone getting UDMA6 on the P4C800 or any other board with a Raptor or SATA drive.

 

[Mday]

maxtor whipped out ata133 out of its ass just like western digital whipped up the term EIDE out of its ass. ATA100 is the last standard prior to sata1.

 

[SUOrangeman]

"UDMA#" references in the realm of SATA are mere eye candy. True UDMA is a PATA "characteristic".

-SUO