WD800JD SATA appearing as IDE drive in BIOS

[quickshot23]

I have recently built a system with a "GIGABYTE GA-G31M-S2L" motherboard. I am using a Western Digital WD800JD Serial-ATA Hard Drive. Currently I have it in SATAII0. In Bios it is reporting that it is an IDE drive. I have run benchmark tests and it seems as if my scores for HD are weaker then most SATA drives. Is this because of the 8mb cache or am I right to be suspicious of the IDE appearance in BIOS. The HD is supposed to remain jumper-less when using SATA - That is how I have it.

Also, the reason I am worried of this is because I chose this motherboard because its SATA is capable of 3.0gb/s as is the HD. I just dont think im getting that performance.

Thank you for your time.
Stephen

-If you need any more info ask away.

 

[quickshot23]

Sorry I didn't include all my PC info so here is my system...

Windows XP PRO SP2
Gigabyte G31M-S2L
Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 Wolfdale 2.53GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80571E7200
SAPPHIRE 1010 Radeon HD 2600XT 256MB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16
G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel
Western Digital Caviar Blue WD800JD 80GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
Direct X 9.0c
Windows Media Encoder 9

 

[BadBigBen]

In the BIOS, you can set the SATA ports to IDE MODE or Native Mode (SATA), this is to ensure that you can load 'Legacy' OS's, e.g. NT4, OS/2, W2k, XP, 98SE, etc...

it is there to fool the OS into thinking that it is running on IDE, and thus you do not need a seperate driver to load the OS (the famous F6 prompt)...

in other words no need to worry...

as to the performance, that depends on a lot of factors, e.g. size of file, if the file is stored continuously on the drive (fragmentation), spin up, if the drive is clipped to SATA I speed, etc.

Also take into consideration that the 3GB/s (SATA II speed) is only a reference, meaning theoretical and perhaps sometimes it will get that transfer rate, but mostly it will not...

Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

 

[wahnula]

...yeah, what Ben said, plus my SATA Raptor set up on my JMicron SATA channel IDs itself in BIOS as an IDE drive. I'm not worried.

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[quickshot23]

Here is a pic from the software "Drive Speed Checker"

 

[quickshot23]

Pic isnt showing...I used this format minus the quotes...

 

[quickshot23]

Pic isnt showing...I used this format minus the quotes...
"

 

[BadBigBen]

to use an image use the following tags:

[ignore]

[/ignore]

which would display:

Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

 

[quickshot23]

Another try at my results from HD Drive Speed Checker

 

[quickshot23]

 

[wahnula]

I ran that software on my laptop with a 60GB 7200RPM Hitachi TravelStar IDE drive...some tests were close, others were blowouts with your drive winning. I'll run the test tonight on my home machine with 320GB Seagate SATA II 7200.10 x 2 in RAID1 for comparison purposes.

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[cdogg]

Also, the reason I am worried of this is because I chose this motherboard because its SATA is capable of 3.0gb/s as is the HD. I just dont think im getting that performance.

Keep in mind that SATA 3.0 is the rated speed of the "interface". A single hard drive will come nowhere close to using the bandwidth that it provides. That would be like a single car traveling down a 4-lane highway.

SATA 1.5 is still plenty fast for most drives. SATA 3.0 was brought about mainly to help increase performance of RAID arrays that involve more than one drive.


It is still hard to tell if some of those numbers in your pic have commas, but you should be averaging over 50 MB/s for read and over 40 MB/s for write (even on the slowest hard drives). There are a lot of factors involved that can bring those numbers down, such as fragmentation and testing a drive that the OS is running on.

If you haven't done so already, double-check the following:

1) The latest BIOS revision is installed
2) All chipset and other hardware drivers are installed and updated (check the manufacturer's product page for your mobo)
3) Get your hands on a second hard drive to test.
[tab] - If it tests fine, then your WD800JB drive might be failing or running below spec due to wear or some other malfunction.
[tab] - If the test produces similar slow results, then you likely have an issue within your OS producing an inaccurate test.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Einstein
[tab][navy]For posting policies, click [/navy]here.

 

[quickshot23]

With that said - would this drive be a good raid drive - I would definitely be looking to setup a raid to increase performance. If I did, what type of raid would I need to setup. Also, what type of hardware would I need besides the second hard drive.

Thanks a lot for your help guys : )

-Stephen

 

[BadBigBen]

to give you some reference, here are three different drive speeds:

IDE

SATA I

SATA II

so from your transfer speeds, it may seem that your drive may be clipped to the SATA I speed, or your controller is only SATA I speed...

there should be a block of jumpers on the back side of the drive, see if there is a clip, if there is, remove it...



Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

 

[quickshot23]

The Drive I use has pins for jumpers but it says to run SATA it doesn't need it to be jumpered. When I bought it, it didn't have a block on it and I never added one.

 

[quickshot23]

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=83

I don't see SATAII on the spec list does this mean I have a SATAI Drive?

 

[wahnula]

It clearly says: INTERFACE: SATA 3Gb/s

That's SATA II.

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[BadBigBen]

go to the device manager, check under drives if the write cache is activated...

also you have an economy (consumer) drive, these are a tad slower as the enterprise (server) drives...

PS: with the prices of today's HDDs, why did you get an 80 gig drive? as the cost per gigabyte is higher than, lets say, a 500 gig drive...

Western Digital Caviar SE WD5000AAJS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM $74.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136178

6.67 gig / $ 1.00

Western Digital Caviar Blue WD800JD 80GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM $38.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822135106

2.05 gig / $ 1.00

for 3 dollars more you could have even gotten double the storage (160 gb) with an Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600AAJS 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM $41.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136075

3.81 gig / $ 1.00

Now the other question:

why did you get a G31 chipset motherboard, if you are so intent on a speedy PC (gathered through this post and the other in the PC Hardware Forum)?


Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

 

[quickshot23]

basically it was meant to be a stable budget board - the hard drive I pulled from my last system - thats the reason it is only 80gig - its not that im looking to OC and make it the fastest pc out their im just saying Im looking to make sure BIOS is set and to make sure I didnt overlook anything that I can quickly change to boost performance a little

 

[BadBigBen]

basically it was meant to be a stable budget board - the hard drive I pulled from my last system

Ok, that clears up things for me...

and I would not be worried about the negligible speed differences, as long as the whole system is stable and running correctly...



Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."