Shielding SATA cables...

V

Voodooo

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 4, 2000
Messages
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Ive read the sticky thread, but theres no info on how to do it... I suppose I can wrap the thing in a bunch of copper wire or foil, then wrap it in tape, but, does it need to drain to the computer case ? Any ideeas?
 
Meet badaz [H]ard Sata Mk1 :D



satacable.jpg
 
Should I tell that Hdtach results doubled? No, they might believe it. Anyway for any noob having a look in my box and saying woow what is that ! i could simply answer oh nothing much, just a piece of NASA server tech that allows me to get triple harddrive speed :d

Seriously now it has the advantage of making the cable stiff, as a results its harder to move from those ultra flimsy sata connectors. Odd I didnt read any complaints about that, i was shocked to see how loose they could be !
 
PimpRig Review of RD3XP Gladiator PATA133 Cables Super Shielded

Benchmark Improvements

not quite double but close :p
(the higher marks are the super shielded,
employing flawed benchmarks
but not everyone can afford IPEAK SPT,
they are never the less indicitive of some sort of improvement)

HD Tach
Minimum 6752 \ 4725
Average 25521 \ 23303
Maximum 39533 \ 36309

Sandra 2003 FileSystem
31724 \ 30602

PCMark 2002
619 \ 613


why?
Dans Data IDE Fancy Leads the terrible truth
Even if no errors that actually get past the checking process, you still don't want a high error rate, because it slows down your drives. CRC only provides error detection, not error correction; to get the correct version of data, blocks with errors have to be sent again.

This means that long or just plain lousy cables may give you better drive performance if you lock the appropriate IDE channel to a slower transfer mode in your computer's BIOS setup. The theoretical available bandwidth is then lower, but if the error rate drops from "tons" to "not many" because you've now got the system running below the IDE cable's threshold of crumminess (a technical term), the net result can be better drive speed.
Click to expand...
 
Not much luck here, the hdtach results are the same (with the usual minimal variation)
 
Originally posted by Ice Czar
yup

needs to ground, MrMike pointed out some
sheilded SATA cables to me as well

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=1025969526#post1025969526

using foil tape is very common in enterprise SCSI
bought a "media" shelf (SCSI Tape drive & CDROM in a 2U Rackmount) that liberally employed Foil sheilding
Click to expand...

So do you think those Thernaltake PVC sheilded SATA cables that he pointed out would be sufficient? I have a raptor ordered and I am going to use a regular cable that came with my motherboard until I get a better one I think. Is that a horrible problem or would it be alright for the time being?
 
both the
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=316603
and the
http://www.thermaltake.com/accessories/roundCables/RoundCable.htm
are supposedly shielded
the thermaltake says its PVC
now thats the same stuff almost every mobo ATA cable is made out of
and its the cheap way to go
look at these tests (click on Pics for animated gif)


but to answer your question
if it was me
if it was for a desktop rig, that wasnt for business, your fine
on the other hand if your flying a workstation or operating a database server
Id be concerned

but the same could be said about any PATA interface (see below), and keep in mind even with these issues, its still more likely your memory is the probable cause of corruption

unless your actually experiencing problem or are practicing due diligence in an enterprise environment I wouldnt sweat it immediately (but I would consider it a better investment than a light kit or window :p)

ATA Not so Frequently Asked Questions
Or: Why Ribbon Cables are unsuitable
for RF transmission of data

The following article was written by snn47 to address some of the issues associated with standard ribbon cables and the use of e.g. removable drive racks as an attempt to share some insight into factors that can adversely affect the life or reliability of of desktop Hard Disk Drives. Specifically, issues like why some drives are working in some systems and not in others, the impact of cable routing and why is it that the drive manufacturers always recommend using their own cables (if supplied with the drive).

There is a ton of data in this article, some of which are of interest only for the EE-crowd or else some nerds but there is also some stuff of why sometimes simply rerouting the cable can solve the problems at hand.



Some IDE-HDDs run stable in one system even when overclocked, in another system the same drives won't work (stable) even when run within specs. There are several factors that fall in to the general picture of HDD failure and which may or may not relate to each other. Therefore, we need to make sure that all parameters are taken into account and weighed against each other.
In detail, those parameters are:


the actual problem (e.g. data corruption vs. physical failure of the drive)
under which circumstances, that is, setup and settings they occurred (e.g. system-type,
clock speed)
cable length and type (e.g. rounded, twisted pair etc.)
number of connectors (master, slave)
use of a drive bay or not

More >
Click to expand...

when you look at say and external RAID array, every single bridge
PCI slot > Host Bus Adapter > Cable > External Array's Internal Bus > RAID Card > Internal Bus > Hot Swap Sled
has been tested by a EE, for signal quality (and as far as I know, even when its an IDE RAID, the first stretch to the External Arrays Bus is always SCSI)

your mobo\drives\PSU also puts out Electromagnetic Fields which
can interfere with signal quality in an unsheilded cable, which is where routing ccomes into it, as EMFields obey the Inverse Square Law
an additional routing consideration
6. If the cable is run above metal the electronic properties change we'll have another jump/change in impedance

with all this youd think there would be more problems and often they go un-noticed
Fancy IDE leads - The Terrible Truth
How come they work, then?

What may be causing you a certain amount of confusion at this juncture is the fact that there are people all over the world successfully using over-length ATA cables. Including round ones. Some people use cables 750mm or even 900mm in length, without causing any obvious explosions or outbreaks of smallpox. How so, I hear you ask.

Again, two reasons.

Reason one - good enough components at each end of the cable can deal with more signal corruption than the IDE specification demands of them. Modern ATA hardware is pretty darn good at dealing with lousy cables. Older drives typically have lower tolerances, and some older motherboard IDE chipsets did brilliant things like effectively connect the two IDE connectors together as far as length-related problems went, resulting in seven inch real world cable length limits if you attached cables to both connectors. But those days are largely past. Current consumer IDE hardware can shout through the noise quite well.

Reason two - IDE covers up data loss problems. The ATA interface has CRC error checking built in. When data's munged in transit down the cable, the error is detected and the data is resent.
Click to expand...
 
Originally posted by Ice Czar
PimpRig Review of RD3XP Gladiator PATA133 Cables Super Shielded

Benchmark Improvements

not quite double but close :p
(the higher marks are the super shielded,
employing flawed benchmarks
but not everyone can afford IPEAK SPT,
they are never the less indicitive of some sort of improvement)

HD Tach
Minimum 6752 \ 4725
Average 25521 \ 23303
Maximum 39533 \ 36309

Sandra 2003 FileSystem
31724 \ 30602

PCMark 2002
619 \ 613


why?
Click to expand...


So for someone attaching a new IDE (PATA) drive to their desktop system, should they purchase the $16 RD3XP IDE Cable? Is it a noticible difference? Thanks
 
for the cost of a FDD
its a good investment
I wouldnt go into it as a performance enhancement (though that might happen)
rather as an insurance policy

on the other hand, how long till you stop using PATA?
 
it only takes 2 minutes to DIY. I think best would be to use those aluminium foils used for food, they are thin and your cable will remain flexible. What I used was ripped from those large alu variable lenght tubings and its too thick.
 
I've never heard that Serial ATA cables benefit from shielding. There's a reason why the signal wires are in twisted-pair configurations...
 
I've never heard that Serial ATA cables benefit from shielding. There's a reason why the signal wires are in twisted-pair configurations...
Click to expand...

Im dubious about the possible usefullness of shielding in this context as well, though Ice has stickied an article
here, I question the degree to which interference is an issue with SATA cables that remain inside the case.

It would certainly be interesting if SATA cable shielding could be shown to increase performance in a repeatable manner, but I haven't seen anything like that yet.
 
Originally posted by leukotriene
Im dubious about the possible usefullness of shielding in this context as well, though Ice has stickied an article
here, I question the degree to which interference is an issue with SATA cables that remain inside the case.

It would certainly be interesting if SATA cable shielding could be shown to increase performance in a repeatable manner, but I haven't seen anything like that yet.
Click to expand...

It's beginning to make me wonder if I can increase the fidelity of my LAN by doing something similar to it with tinfoil...
 
I have seen some more expensive UTP connectors that have a piece of metal as shielding, but wrapping the wire in alu foil might help it its very near some strong fields. In my particular case the lan cable runs side by side for about 20cm with 220V chords. That would qualify for a source of interference i think. Same goes for the monitor cable. But we are going very OT :)
 
YOu know, you're going to cost my parents a lot of money in tinfoil... :p

I might actually sort throught the rats nest of cables behind my desk now... :p I have to take my main box out for dremeling... It's going to get ++ airflow. :p
 
Originally posted by ’m‚³‚ñ
It's beginning to make me wonder if I can increase the fidelity of my LAN by doing something similar to it with tinfoil...
Click to expand...
It's called STP/FTP.
 
Originally posted by Voodooo
Meet badaz [H]ard Sata Mk1 :D



satacable.jpg
Click to expand...
Does this work just as good?Did you just wrap the wire with foil and tape the ground wire to the foil and ground the wire to the psu or ground it to anything?
When I went from IDE 8mg 7200 rpm to SATA 8mg 7200 I notice no diffrence.Im not running in raid,Im just running 1 80g SATA and 1 200g IDE thru a scsi card.Im thinking of getting another 80g SATA and going RAID but havnet learned how to do that yet.
Shark
 
Originally posted by Elledan
It's called STP/FTP.
Click to expand...

Uh... Of the 6 LAN cables I have, 1 of them doesn't run down through the tangled mess of 9 or so power cables.
 
Originally posted by ’m‚³‚ñ
Uh... Of the 6 LAN cables I have, 1 of them doesn't run down through the tangled mess of 9 or so power cables.
Click to expand...
:confused:
 
Originally posted by sharkdiver420
When I went from IDE 8mg 7200 rpm to SATA 8mg 7200 I notice no diffrence.
Click to expand...

thats the thing about ATA\ATAPI (be it parallel or serial),
it hides errors
Fancy IDE leads - The Terrible Truth

Excerpts

IDE (ATA-PATA-SATA-ATAPI) covers up data loss problems. The ATA interface has CRC error checking built in. When data's munged in transit down the cable, the error is detected and the data is resent.

Electromagnetic radiation goes straight through insulation. So external interference from the rest of your computer's giblets can influence the signal on your IDE leads.

Unshielded cables act like antennas. Generally speaking, the longer you make 'em, the more energy they can pick up from their environment.

SCSI works with long unshielded ribbon cables because it puts terminators at either end
Click to expand...

and often SCSI internal cables are shielded, by the integrators, and almost all external SCSI cables are sheilded

SATA Cautions @ ATA-ATAPI.com

FIRST, THINGS YOU DO NOT DO WHEN USING SATA!

If you are setting up a system using SATA here are some things you must be aware of:

* DO NOT operate SATA devices outside of a sealed system unit. DO NOT operate SATA devices from a power supply that is not the system unit's power supply.
* DO NOT tie wrap SATA cables together. DO NOT put sharp bends in SATA cables. DO NOT route SATA cables near PATA cables. Avoid placing SATA devices close to each other such that the SATA cable connectors are close to each other.
* DO NOT operate a radio transmitter (such as a cell phone) near an exposed SATA cable or device.

Why all these warning? The basic problem is the SATA cable connector is not shielded. This has to be the number one most stupid thing that has been done in the SATA world.

SECOND, LETS TALK ABOUT SATA RELIABILITY!

Are you thinking about buying a Serial ATA system and drive? If yes, read this... The Serial ATA (or SATA) products that are now shipping and available in your local computer store may not be the most reliable products. Testing of SATA products with tools such ATACT program are finding a variety of problems. These problems are timeout errors, data compare errors, and strange status errors. These problems are being reported by a large number of people doing SATA product testing. Hale's advice at this time is be very careful - make sure you can return the SATA product your purchased if it does not perform as you expect. See the ATACT link above for some ATACT log files showing both normal testing of a parallel ATA (PATA) drive (no errors!) and testing of a SATA drive (lots of errors!).

The unshielded SATA cable connector is mostly like the source of many of these problems. Making things worse is the failure of the SATA specification to implement an equivalent to the ATA Soft Reset. On a PATA interface Soft Reset rarely fails to get ATA/ATAPI devices back to a known state so that a command can be retried. On a SATA interface the equivalent to this reset does not seem to reset anything and at some times it is basically ignored by the SATA controller and device.

And finally, ... Don't buy SATA because it claims to be faster than PATA. The marketing claims that it can transfer data at up to 150MB/second (making it faster than the fastest PATA Ultra DMA mode, mode 6 or 133MB/second) will not be seen with the SATA products that are shipping today (late 2003). Today's SATA products are actually 10% to 20% slower than PATA. This is because today's SATA products are really PATA products with an extra SATA-to-PATA 'bridge chip' in the device. These bridge chips add significant overhead to the SATA protocols. In time there will real 'native' SATA devices that do not need these bridge chips - Then we can see what the true performance of SATA. But remember SATA is a 'serial interface' and serial interfaces rarely live up to their marketing claims.
Click to expand...
 
I find it interesting that std pata cables are more sensitive to emi noise, and pata error correction is less sophisticated, yet so far everybody's managed to get along given these flaws. Now suddenly there is this percieved alarm of "the dangers of sata" and the need for shielding, despite the fact that sata is superior in both regards.

[edit] I also think the danger of a home-brewed bare foil wrapped sata cable hovering over my mobo waiting to short something out is a much more realistic concern. You just know somebody is going to read some of these threads and do just that. At least their data will not have been corrupted by the emi generated by the arcing that sets their box on fire.
 
if they are properly grounded there will be no arcing
and the case as well is grounded, Hale Landis helped to develop the ATA ATAPI standard, and when he points out that there are
"timeout errors, data compare errors, and strange status errors"
people do tend to listen

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/03/07/the_open_pc_is_dead/

Hale Landis maintains the ata-atapi.com website, and has been working for open standards for 25 years. He has been a participant in the ANSI X3/NCITS Technical Committees that developed the ATA and ATA/ATAPI standards since 1990, and works as a consultant and provider of test software.
Click to expand...

few new things are "perfect" and SATAs current implementation appears to have a few warts, these forums are just choked with overclockers and case modders, making your own shielded cables is on the mild side of what goes on here every day :p
 
in the first case shielding will increase performance marginally, in the second, not

sometimes the results of good shielding can be suprising
that is for PATA of course
Click to expand...

HD-Tach? Sandra?
One run each?
What's the standard deviation going to be there?

Greater than the margin between the cables he's measuring, I'll wager.

Perhaps if he had used a wider variety of tools and more importantly, done a significantly larger number of iterations, a 2% difference might be notable.
 
Oh Id definately agree to the flawed benchmarking :p

in the past I have prefaced that link, but was lazy today :rolleyes:

which is why Id call it indicative of an andvatage
not definative proof of one
however it does fit within the overall scheme of how ATA\ATAPI handles errors
again from Dans Data
Even if no errors that actually get past the checking process, you still don't want a high error rate, because it slows down your drives. CRC only provides error detection, not error correction; to get the correct version of data, blocks with errors have to be sent again.

This means that long or just plain lousy cables may give you better drive performance if you lock the appropriate IDE channel to a slower transfer mode in your computer's BIOS setup. The theoretical available bandwidth is then lower, but if the error rate drops from "tons" to "not many" because you've now got the system running below the IDE cable's threshold of crumminess (a technical term), the net result can be better drive speed.

Bit rot
If you've got a major IDE data loss problem, things will be obviously broken. Drives won't be recognised consistently (or at all) on boot, every file operation of any significant size will cause errors, swap file activity will hang the computer.

That's not the kind of problem you're likely to have from a common-or-garden over-length cable, though. When bits only fall on the floor relatively occasionally, the drives will not obviously be the culprit. If the hardware error detection's catching almost all of the foul-ups, all you'll see is strangely slow drive performance. Since drive speed has little impact on most desktop computer tasks, you probably won't notice

The most heavily accessed part of your drive is very probably going to be the part that holds your Windows swap file. Since the swap file is literally part of your computer's random access memory as far as Windows is concerned, IDE data integrity problems can cause the same sorts of symptoms as faulty RAM.

Many of these symptoms don't look like drive errors at all. Swap file errors won't give you a disk error warning message; your computer will just jam its head enthusiastically up its cloaca and start chewing like mad. If you don't suspect the drive cable, you will then get to spend a significant fraction of your life cursing at the thing and swapping out perfectly OK components, to no avail.

A computer in this state can give the user the "anti-Midas touch" - everything you touch can turn to dung. Any write operation may, or may not, result in small but file-killing errors.

Oh, yes - what's the second-most-accessed single chunk of disk space on a Windows box? Probably the registry, baby. You don't want errors there, either.
Click to expand...

the man can turn a phrase :p

but those results are backed up with indepndent noise test results (paid for by the manufacturer but who eles is going to do it :p )
Click on a cable PIC for an animated noise graph
RD3 Series Noise Durability Test
compares a number of different cables

the actual devices in your computer, maybe better or worse at shouting through the noise, so expecting a definitive percentage of performance enhancement is unrealistic, it could be more, it could be none

but when it is all said and done
you can go out a spend several hundred dollars on SCSI cables, or a fraction of that
(and this being a terminated interface unlike ATA\ATAPI)
people just dont spend two to three times as much money on a regular basis,
without a reason ;)
 
Originally posted by Ice Czar
if they are properly grounded there will be no arcing...
Click to expand...
Understood. I was referring to bare foil cables floating around inside the case and potentially touching traces on the mobo or cards.
 
an additional insulative layer certainly wouldnt hurt ;)
but good routing should deal with most of the concern
in the past where Ive seen it employed they where typically routed directly against the case wall (or to be accurate the rackmounts floor)
 
but those results are backed up with indepndent noise test results (paid for by the manufacturer but who eles is going to do it )
RD3 Series Noise Durability Test
compares a number of different cables
Click to expand...

Interesting!

It'd be fascinating if we could find out what the EMI environment in the manufacturers test system was. Given that they're trying to pimp their product it wouldn't be surprising to find a bluetooth card, three WiFi cards and a badly shielded FM/TV card all shoved into a micro-sized case stuffed into a microwave.

I'd imagine the IDE "AID" people might be particularly interested in these results for maximum speeds.
 
well the English version of that page is summarized

some more information can be gleaned from the Japanese side of the website


RD3 Gladiator ATA-100/133 cable

VICS's RD3 Gladiator ATA-100/133 cable has been tested by Electronics Testing Center (ETC), a semi-government run testing laboratory in Taiwan.

ETC randomly picks an existing ATA-100 cable comparing with our RD3 cable to make the test fair and unbiased. This test report is based ON the actual cable performance without any environmental interference.

The test outcome is very satisfactory and it proves that our RD3 cable is superior to the currently existing ATA-100 cables.

VICS also produces floppy cables with the same method to improve the performance.

As the result and RD3 cable does sustain the noise level at least 10dB at 100MHz to 133MHz (most commonly used frequency in computer system) comparing to the regular ATA-100 flat cable.
Click to expand...

http://www.vicstech.com/jp/rd3xp/NoiseTest/
http://www.uside.net/SmartCable/
http://www.vicstech.com/jp/rd3xp/test01.shtml
http://www.vicstech.com/jp/rd3xp/tech.shtml

It compares verifies the noise tolerance of the smart cable


Visualizing noise

While visualizing those discernibly, noise you verified the noise tolerance of various IDE cables.
In verificationGood fortune positive electronic corporation Real time analyzer light/write editionIt used.
Each verification result please clicks the photograph of the cable which we would like to display from the menu the left.

Measurement environment

Generality (A) connecting CD-ROM and the motherboard with the flat cable, it generates noise by the fact that it copies all data of CD-ROM of Windows2000 Professional in HD. (A) It becomes the measuring object on the cable, in order (B) to make the cable accompany, installing, it measures (A) the noise which is generated from the cable (B) produces the effect which is how way in the cable.

One end of the cable for verification (B) you connect to the cable, connect one side to Line-In of the sound card already.

Sampling -> 48.000kHz
FFT size -> 1024
Time base data several -> 32
Frequency axis -> Straight line
Channel -> Stereo (in case of 2ch inspection)


The signal (noise) level horizontal shaft frequency band, strength of vertical axis noise, is displayed at depth time

Reference
The data of a state where the < < inspection object cable is not connected display > >
It is necessary to look at each graph as deducts the noise which is displayed in theoretically here.

Beforehand notice

Noise tolerance inspection of the HDD cable this time is theme, but because of the prerequisite where many ones easily verify, the frequency band which it should verify originally as the HDD cable is not comprehended.
Verification frequency band because of audio frequency band of the human, is not the meaning, substituting, but it has become the way where influence to the sound quality by the cable understands.
Precision and the like of measurement has an influence on the performance of the personal computer and that sound card. In addition, because by any means it is not the dedicated instrument, the high performance making use of the sound card very, in the measurement system being the limit, please understand also the fact that the influence in addition with the noise from another part appears.
 
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