SATA, SATA II, PCI Bus questions.

[Comte]

I have a Maxtor 6V200E0 HDD. Specs are

Main Features

• Hard drive
• 200 GB
• internal
• 3.5"
• SATA-300
• 7200 rpm
• buffer: 8 MB
Serial ATA/300 (SATA II), Serial ATA/150 and Ultra ATA/133 interfaces
Native command queuing for enhanced efficiency
Quiet Drive Technology for acoustics-sensitive applications
Whisper-quiet fluid dynamic bearing motors
Maxtor Shock Protection and Data Protection Systems for greater reliability


On a Abit AI7 motherboard. I DO NOT want redo my computer right now. The drive works fine on the SATA connector on the MB.

If, however, I buy this card

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16816102061

Model
Brand PROMISE
Model SATA300 TX2plus
Specifications
Type SATA II
Internal Connectors 2 SATA 3Gb/s Ports plus 1 Ultra ATA/133 channel
Interface PCI
Transfer Rate Up to 266MB SATA, Up to 133MB EIDE
Operating Systems Supported Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP
Red Hat Linux
SuSE Linux
Linux open source code
Features
Features Native Command Queuing (NCQ)
SATA Tagged Command Queuing (TCQ)
Supports Serial ATAPI devices

Will I get faster HDD performance than I am currently getting with the SATA on the motherboard?

Thanks in advance.

[fuelvolts]

theoretically, yes it's faster. But that only really partains to burst mode (transferring data from hd's cache through SATA bus ). Since hard drives are too slow to fully utilize SATA II's full potential, the only real benefit of using SATA II is decreased latencies (the miliseconds it takes for your HD to "think") and a little better throughput.

Nothing I'd spend $50 on. Just wait until you do a mobo upgrade with SATA II in the future.

[Madwand]

Considering the PCI bus, I don't see how you'd get a burst speed advantage, and in theory, you could see a slight decline. NCQ/etc., typically do not make a positive difference for single-user access patterns.

In summary -- save that $ towards a more meaningful upgrade. Even a second drive to host some independent concurrent access might qualify.