Will my motherboard support SATA?

[poleary2000]

Hi there. I am looking for some help. I currently have want to upgrade my hard drive and am looking for information on whether my current motherboard suppors an SATA drive. I do a little video editing, so hard drive speed is important to me. I currently have a Seagate ST3400632A-RK - 400GB Internal Ultra ATA-16MB installed as my main drive.

I would like to upgrade to SATA, but don't want to have to buy a separate controller (unless adding a card for SATA is still going to be faster than what I have now). My current computer information is listed below. Can you help? Thanks in advance, Patrick.

CPUID Output
------------------------------------------

Number of CPUs 2 (1 Physical)

CPU #1
APIC ID 0
Name Intel Pentium 4
Code name Prescott
Specification Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz
Family/Model/Stepping F33
Extended Family/Model F/3
Package mPGA-478 (2h)
Core Stepping C0
Technology 90nm
Instructions Sets MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3
Features
Clock Speed 3000.1 MHz
Clock multiplier x15.0
Front Side Bus Frequency 200.0 MHz
Bus Speed 800.0 MHz
Stock frequency 3000 MHz
L1 Data Cache 16 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64 Bytes line size
L1 Trace Cache 12 Kuops, 8-way set associative
L2 Cache 1024 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64 Bytes line size
L2 Speed 3000.1 MHz (Full)
L2 Location On Chip
L2 Data Prefetch Logic yes
L2 Bus Width 256 bits

Chipset
-------------------------------------------

Northbridge Intel i865P/PE/G/i848P rev. A2
Southbridge Intel 82801EB (ICH5) rev. 02
Graphic Interface AGP
AGP Revision 3.0
AGP Transfer Rate 8x
AGP SBA supported, enabled
Memory Type DDR
Memory Size 2048 MBytes
Memory Frequency 200.0 MHz (1:1)
CAS# 3.0
RAS# to CAS# 4
RAS# Precharge 4
Cycle Time (tRAS) 8
Performance Mode enabled

Memory SPD
--------------------------------------------

DIMM #1

General
Memory type DDR
Manufacturer (ID) (0000000000000000)
Size 1024 MBytes
Max bandwidth PC3200 (200 MHz)
Part number

Attributes
Number of banks 2
Data width 64 bits
Correction None
Registered no
Buffered no
EPP no

Timings table
Frequency (MHz) 200
CAS# 3.0
RAS# to CAS# delay 4
RAS# Precharge 4
TRAS 8

DIMM #2

General
Memory type DDR
Manufacturer (ID) (0000000000000000)
Size 1024 MBytes
Max bandwidth PC3200 (200 MHz)
Part number

Attributes
Number of banks 2
Data width 64 bits
Correction None
Registered no
Buffered no
EPP no

Timings table
Frequency (MHz) 200
CAS# 3.0
RAS# to CAS# delay 4
RAS# Precharge 4
TRAS 8

 

[wolluf]

Open the cae and see if there are SATA connectors on the motherboard? You don't seem to be listing the motherboard name - but presumably you can find it out - open the case again, or use somethjing like belarc advisor? Are there any SATA options when you boot the machine/in the bios?

How old is mobo? If its not that new, even if it does support SATA it will probably be earlier slower version, which is not significantly faster interface than PATA (150 to 133 I think).

If you're really interested in faster hard drive access times, you should do a little research (see how fast drives are available, and what you need to deploy them - what about a SCSI drive?) - I'm sure there's lot of info on the net. You'll probably need a new mobo or controller card.

 

[paparazi]

From the information given you have an Intel i865P/PE/G/i848P chipset based motherboard, socket 478 with an 800fsb Prescott core 3.0gig CPU.

The best I can do with this info is to say "probably" !With these specs you probably have native SATA support.
But
To be certain we need to have more specific information, namely make and model of the motherboard.

I will say however, looking at your current hard drive spec you will gain very little going to a SATA150.

You need to realise that these are interface's speeds (ATA100/133/PATA150/300) and not the actual transfer rates of these drives.
The reality is even the very latest SATA drives are only a few percent quicker than the modern ATA equivelent.
Plus if native SATA is supported on this older motherboard it is likely only to be the original SATA150 standard.

To give you an example: Typical sustained transfer rates for a modern SATA drive are around 70MB/sec with momentary bursts just topping the 100/105MB/sec mark, so you see, even the old ATA100 interface standard was just about capable of carrying all this info without restriction.
Point is: fitting a faster connection interface does not make the mechanics of the drive any quicker.
The benefits therefore will be minimal.
As a side note however: if supported? a raid array of say two disks may give you the performance increase you are looking for but this is another subject altogether.

Martin



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