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.

 

[cdogg]

It doesn't make sense to me that the SATA II drive performs that much faster than the SATA I drive for Overall Write Speed in Ben's screenshot. The reason why I question that is because the older SATA I interface allows up to 187.5 MB/s transfer rates, which is clearly faster than any single drive can write.

Why then would SATA I vs. SATA II matter? Obviously SATA II has some minor improvements, so if anything you can expect a "slight" difference. But in the screenshot we see a 300% increase in write speed which doesn't make sense at all. When you compare two different drives, there are too many factors at stake. It's not just about the difference between SATA I and SATA II.

____________________________


Also, I would recommend going with a reliable benchmark tool such as HD Tach:

http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public/index.php?request=HdTach

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

 

[quickshot23]

You asked why I am concerned with slight variances in speed - my answer to that is, I am not - the issue was "Am I getting the appropriate speed for this setup" or is something I did messing with its normal performance

 

[BadBigBen]

Cdogg, both are on the same controller (ICH9, GIGABYTE P35 main board), and I think that is the key here could be CACHE... when I get home I will poll the data on both drives and let you all know...

and I will TACH it tonite to clear that up aswell...

Ben

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

 

[cdogg]

You asked why I am concerned with slight variances in speed - my answer to that is, I am not - the issue was "Am I getting the appropriate speed for this setup" or is something I did messing with its normal performance

Yes, I think I understand where you're coming from. My concern is the way the benchmark reports the results. I'm not sure they are accurate unless I'm missing something.

For example, in all the screenshots above we are shown overall write and read speeds somewhere between 20 KB/s and 60 KB/s. That is an alarming figure because all drives should easily be able to average speeds well above 30 MB/s (that's megabytes not kilobytes).

Therefore, I would suggest that HD Tach or another reliable benchmark be used instead, which helps guarantee that the different software and OS layers aren't interfering with the results. Ben said he would try that next and you might want to do the same.

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

 

[BadBigBen]

cdogg,

as promised, though HDTACH only does READ speed, but it does show a different picture:

IDE

SATA I

SATA II

Ben

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

 

[cdogg]

Ben,

HD Tach actually shows a lot of different benchmarks including WRITE speed, but the trial version you downloaded is limited to READ only.

Seeing READ speeds above 50 MB/s is more like it and makes sense. Also, I should point out that you are testing three different hard drives. So there is no way from your test to determine advantages & disadvantages of the interface such as SATA I vs. SATA II. I will stick with the idea that an SATA II drive will perform almost the same on SATA I as it would on SATA II. Again, SATA II only has an edge in RAID arrays for the most part. A single drive operating on its own should show very little difference.

But the real importance here is the fact that this benchmark shows results in MB/s and not KB/s.

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

 

[BadBigBen]

Cdogg, I kinda agree, though the purported transfer rate of 1.5 and 3Gbps (bits) are misleading to the average consumer...

the above, though, demonstrates that the SATA II drive would underperform on a SATA I controller (150MB/s) than on a SATA II (300MB/s) controller, note: transfer rate was 201MB/s and it would have been capped...

but for all purpose, a normal user would not even notice the difference between a WD Raptor and a regular drive...

PS: this might prove interesting:

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/hard-disks/average-read-transfer-performance,658.html

Ben

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

 

[cdogg]

the above, though, demonstrates that the SATA II drive would underperform on a SATA I controller (150MB/s) than on a SATA II (300MB/s) controller, note: transfer rate was 201MB/s and it would have been capped...

Ben,
Actually that "transfer rate" you are pointing out is called Burst Speed. Burst speed is the part of the benchmark where it determines how long it takes data from the internal cache of the hard drive to travel to the CPU. This test isolates the speed of the interface such as SATA 3.0 Gbps.

However, you must keep in mind that burst speed has nothing to do with the "actual" speed of the drive. For example, the highest sequential read recorded in your test was about 87 MB/s. So even though the SATA II interface allows the drive to transfer data up to 201 MB/s, it will never need all that bandwidth. The mechanical limitation of the drive is always going to be somewhere around 90 MB/s.

So why does HD Tach report the burst speed if it's not that important? The answer is that in some cases it is important. As you continue to add more drives all sharing the same bandwidth (especially in a RAID array), the burst speed rating will start to drop as the channel becomes saturated. SATA II is a lot more robust than SATA I when it comes to handling multiple simultaneous requests (in fact, SATA I can't process more than one at a time). RAID arrays flourish on SATA II for that very reason.

To a single drive, however, SATA II shouldn't really make all that much difference when it is used over SATA I.

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

 

[cdogg]

Oh, and I forgot to mention:

SATA I = 1.5 Gbps = 1500 Mbps = 187 MB/s
SATA II = 3.0 Gbps = 3000 Mbps = 375 MB/s

So the actual bandwidth limits are higher than what most people tend to quote.

 

[BadBigBen]

Cdogg, thanx for clearing that up... makes sense the way you described it...

Just for informational purposes:

Does SATA II mean SATA 3Gb/s?

No. The term SATA II was the name of the original organization formed to develop the SATA technology specifications. In 2004, the group changed its name to the Serial ATA International Organization, or SATA-IO.

source:

http://www.sata-io.org/satatechnology.asp

and to the math, though correctly done, it needs refining I think we where both thinking along the same lines...

First-generation SATA interfaces, also known as SATA/150 or unofficially as SATA 1, communicate at a rate of 1.5 gigabits per second (Gbit/s). Taking into account 8b10b coding overhead, the actual uncoded transfer-rate is 1.2 Gbit/s, or 1,200 megabits per second (Mbit/s).

...

Data transfer rates are limited by mechanical hard drives themselves, not the interfaces: the fastest modern desktop hard drives transfer data at a maximum of about 118 MB/s, which is well within the capabilities of even the older PATA/133 specification.

source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA

Ben

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

 

[cdogg]

Thanks Ben. I knew SATA II is not an official name. I find it easier to use for shorthand sake, and it clicks with others when you do.

And I didn't realize that about the 8b10b coding overhead, thanks...

 

[BadBigBen]

cdogg,

I must admit, I do too use SATA II as it seems to be the most understood term when it comes to SATA/300...

I just added that for general information...

what I find interesting, are the Port Replicators that would allow more than one drive to be used on a single SATA port... that takes me back to days of the C64 and it's serial attached Floppy drives...

Ben

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