New seagates with NCQ

[Matt126]

I was checking out the new seagates with NCQ, I did a little reading on them but I still want to know something..

Does this require a special controller or can I use any old SATA controller and still see the so-called performance gain? Is there anything else I'm missing that I'd need?

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=101559

There's a link for anyone who hasn't seen it.

-Matt

 

[xonik]

This article gives you a good background on command queuing, native or otherwise:

http://storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/op/logicMultiple.html

Of particular interest is the following segment:

This advanced feature, sometimes called command queuing and reordering or multiple command queuing, is very useful for servers and other systems being used by multiple people (while its absence is generally not a problem for most single-user PCs equipped with IDE/ATA hardware.)

And from this page:

http://storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/if/scsi/protCQR.html

For a very simple SCSI bus, such as a single hard disk on a host adapter in a desktop PC, command queuing and reordering may not make a particularly huge difference in performance. The reason is simply that there aren't that many concurrent processes running, and not a great deal of activity on the bus. This feature really comes into its own in a multiple-device, multitasking environment, such as that experienced by a shared server. In that environment, command queuing and reordering will improve performance significantly, by allowing devices to accept multiple simultaneous requests from different users, and fill them in the most efficient manner.

Why I bring all of this up is so that you can decide whether or not command queuing is for you. As you can probably tell, it doesn't just bring a blanket improvement in performance, and there are other hard drives out there that offer better single-user performance for less. You just have to make sure that NCQ is for you before deciding that it's a must-have feature.

Or maybe I'm wasting your time.

And yes, you need a controller that supports native command queuing to take advantage of the feature.

 

[defakto]

Some controller manufacturers are saying it will be as simple as a bios update, however, to have NCQ enabled on teh controller

 

[Matt126]

It's really not that much more expensive I just want to know if it's backwards compatible with controllers that don't support NCQ yet. i.e. The controller on the NF7-S.

 

[xonik]

Yes, the hard drive is backwards compatible with controllers that do not support NCQ.

 

[Snugglebear]

Just note that there's no telling when and if the manufacturers will get around to making/releasing these bios udpdates. I wouldn't be surprised to see most never get around to it or back out at the last minute due to an unforseen problem.