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Maxtor 120GB SATA performance...

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PumaMan

n00b
Joined
Aug 21, 2003
Messages
14
OK, I just bought a Maxtor 120GB SATA HD (as stated in the title ;)) to replace my Maxtor 160GB ATA/133 HD as the primary HD. Well after installing Windows XP Pro with the SATA driver disk that came with my motherboard (ABIT IC7), it seems like everything takes longer to load! What gives? I thought SATA was supposed to be faster... 150MB/s.

I still have Windows XP on the old hard drive, and will keep it until I figure out why this new hard drive is so slow. When I boot from my 160GB, windows boots up almost twice as fast as it does when I boot from my 120GB SATA.

I'd appreciate any insight into my situation. Thanks :)

Oh, and here are my system specs:

Pentium 4 2.4C GHz
ABIT IC7 (latest firmware, just updated the BIOS today)
2x512MB Kingston Hyper-X PC3500 (Dual Channel)
ATI Radeon 9800Pro 128MB
Maxtor 120GB SATA 7200RPM HD
Windows XP Pro SP1
 
first off, the drive logics are not really sata ready (seagate makes the only true sata right now). most are bridged like the maxtor drive. so you really have a pata drive bridged for sata. this means that the maxtor 160 will not only be a bit faster just because of internal logics but also because of aureal density. but there are still advantages to the sata drive which most are obvious, but the biggest is raid o.

right now i am using a maxtor sata 120 right now in single raid ready and it is fast. faster than using normal inf sata/ide installation. did you set your system up for raid ready? that could be the difference you are looking for. possibly, bios options for the controller could be an issue also (not configured correctly).
 
First off, thanks for clearing up some of that for me.

I went into my BIOS and set On-Chip RAID Mode to "RAID." It was set to "IDE." Also, SATA RAID ROM was set to "Enabled." Doing this allowed me to boot from the hard drive, but Windows XP just reset my computer while loading (after only like 2 seconds). Do I need to reinstall XP now? Disabling SATA RAID ROM just plain didn't allow me to boot at all from the drive, like it didn't even recognize it (which is understandable).
 
even with your explanation i will not truly be able to help you well enough. i personally would start new, fresh, and build a stable foundation that satifies my compulsive behavior.

now to do single drive raid ready you need to have the option rom enable, correctly. make sure your documentation explains this-if not look for it in forums or google (http://forum.abit-usa.com/). every manufacture is different. on my intel d875pbz i just enable the option rom and set the correct drive order, nothing complicated.

during istallation prompt for third party scsi/raid you provide the driver with the frabricated disk. after that you do not need a thing. the iaar application is uneccesary till you do raid or do have a raid volume.

one thing to note is the bios options for the drive/boot order should be set. make sure that the sata is set to be the primary in the order. also when installing windows make sure that the partition is created on the drive for drive order to be set correctly also (it will have the pata as c: if it has a partition and sata will be d: if it does not). so if a partition was not on drive before, the order will be placed different. create a partition on sata drive then reboot. following the same steps still for the driver. once at the installation partition question screen you will notice that the partitions should be in order for all harddrives. e.g. sata c:, pata d:. the rest you should know what to do. if not look it up before you do note peoples issues. this way you may have a heads up.

not much help, but hopefully some, good luck.
 
OK... a friend of mine gave me some insight as to what might be wrong. He told me to set my SATA drive as the master of IDE0. So I went in my BIOS and set it to Combined Mode instead of Enhanced Mode, then set it to the Master of IDE1 (which is IDE0 to the BIOS, I wish there would be some consistency there :rolleyes:). Well when I booted my computer I was pleased to find that my SATA was finally performing the way I expected it to. It's not WAY faster than my old 160GB ATA, but doing a benchmark I got 50MB/sec read, as opposed to my PATA's 34MB/sec.

Oh yeah, is that low? Should a 7200RPM SATA/150 be able to actually read at 150MB/sec?
 
I put the exact same drive in mine, up from a 60GB 7200 2mb cache Maxtor. Didn't notice a lick of difference. I'm tempted to clean it off, put it on the FS/T board and buy a couple Raptors just for sh*ts 'n giggles. :D
 
No difference, eh? Weird... since I put my SATA as IDE1 master, I've always been the first person in the game when I play DoD and we start a new level :)

Also decompressing is really fast now. Much faster than with my PATA.
 
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