Do these speeds look right?

[jtg1993]

I have a WD 500GB sata, and my friend let me borrow his WD 320GB to fill with files and stuff. I bench marked both drives but they are about the same speed, and these 320GB's are known for speed. What is going on here? Here is the board and the chipsets are GeForce 6150 LE and nForce 430 (also called MCP51). I have tried different sata ports and cables but nothing has changed. What do you think is going on?

WD5000AAKS:

WD3200AAKS:

 

[Joe Average]

Looks about right to me, pretty much where the results for both of those drives should be. Now, slap one of the WD 640GB AAKS drives in there and watch the performance jump.

The only "issue" I can see if that the burst speed is topping out at 100MB/s so, I'm suspecting perhaps these are ATA/IDE drives (not SATA) and perhaps the controller they're attached to is hampering the performance. They're both quite capable of burst speeds well in excess of 100MB/s, that's a fact, so if they're both showing 100MB/s (ok, so 99.x but it's maxing at a ceiling of 100MB/s) then either:

a) you need a better controller for ATA6 mode (133MB/s)

b) they're SATA drives in ATA/IDE compatibility mode and so is the controller

c) they're using some defective cables

d) the drives are iffy (hard to believe since they're nearly identical in performance and max burst

e) the chipset drivers are having some issues

It could be a mix of any or all of those, I have no idea. But 100MB/s burst for both is clearly indicative that something is limiting them in terms of burst, and since they can both do much higher, I'm suspecting the controller.

 

[jtg1993]

Both those drives are sata, I tried different cables and the same thing happened, tried different sata ports and still the same thing. Im picking up a 1tb seagate on sunday and ill try that.

Now to answer what you said.
a) Drives are sata

b) If so is there any way to change it?

c) Tried different cables, same results.

d) Doubt drives are iffy, there like brand new.

e) Im trying the mobo drives right now, but I have never had a problem not using them because I dont use onboard video or lan and never noticed the speeds till now.

1 Minute later....
I rebooted it with the new drivers installed and the speeds till haven't increased but now onboard lan and video works. I don't know what the problem is now.

 

[Dangman]

Nothing wrong with those speeds. Your friend just happened to get the older two platter WD3200AAKS model, rather than the faster single platter WD3200AAKS. WD, in their infinitive wisdom, decided not to change the or create a new model number for the single platter WD3200AAKS.

The revision number for the new single platter is WD3200AAKS-00B3A0