Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (
More info?)
the speed comes from the drive buffer.. so it'll prolly be a boost at
the start of a read then regular speed afterwards.. not worth the money
Marc Hulsebosch wrote:
> Steven Liburd wrote:
> > Marc Hulsebosch wrote:
> >> Steven Liburd wrote:
> >>
> >>> I know that there is, in theory, a performance boost to be gained by
> >>> SATA II as opposed to UDMA 133, but I'd like to know if that boost is
> >>> being seen by those that have drives of this type. Even subjective
> >>> answers (it does/does not feel faster) will be appreciated. I'm about
> >>> to put together a Linux (SuSE 9.3) system, and I'm wondering if
> >>> getting a motherboard that supports SATA II is worth the extra
> >>> expense. TIA
> >>>
> >>> ==steven
> >>
> >> SATA II is not the name of a standard, but of a group of engineers
> >> that worked on extra SATA features. Some of those features (such as
> >> NCQ) are quite useful. The difference is just a few percent. So
> >> motherboards supporting that are nice, but spending much more money on
> >> one is not very useful, other components have more benefits of that
> >> money.
> >>
> >> Marc
> >
> > True, I read up on it while I was waiting for a reply. What I got from
> > their web site:
> >
> >
http://www.sata-io.org/namingguidelines.asp
> >
> > "The first step toward a better understanding of SATA is to
> > know that SATA II is not the brand name for SATA's 3Gb/s
> > data transfer rate, but the name of the organization formed
> > to author the SATA specifications. The group has since changed
> > names, to the Serial ATA International Organization, or
> > SATA-IO.
> >
> > The 3Gb/s capability is just one of many defined by the
> > former SATA II committee, but because it is among the most
> > prominent features, 3Gb/s has become synonymous with SATA
> > II. Hence, the source of the confusion."
> >
> > So, it would seem that since everyone was getting it wrong, they decided
> > to let it go (the people have spoken!)
> >
> > I did find a review that suggests that if I was going to spend the money
> > it would be better to get a 10000 RPM drive as opposed to a 3Gb/s drive.
> >
> > Thanks for your reply!
> >
> > ==steven
> Out of all SATA II features, 3 Gb may indeed be the least useful one: If
> you think of the fact that a WD Raptor (a 10000 RPM drive) is capable of
> 66MBps, how useful would 300MBps be?
>
> Marc