Is SATA II worth it on a 32 bit PCI Slot

[aireq]

So I picked up two 160 GB SATA II drives (Segate 9BD13D-557) and a two port PCI SATA controler (Adaptec ASH-1205). However, after getting home I realized that the controler is only SATA I.

Will I really experience a performance increase from a SATA II controler in a 32 bit PCI slot?


Eric

 

[vulefu]

The speed limit is in 99% cases in hard drives.

You are stucked now you garra get your self a sataII controller if U mean to use those drives.

Meyb there is a trick i dont know.

I fucked up my friend dont knowing that sataII hdd cant operate at sata I controller(onboard).

The sataII is faster 10mb/s from sataI, not in raid...

 

[Codesmith]

SATA 3.0 Gbps has a maximum theoretical tranfer rate of 300 MBps, SATA 150 has 150 MBps. These are per drive and not shared.

SATA drives have yet to break the 100 MBps barrier, so it will be a long time before you see drives exceeding 150 MBps.

Plus PCI bus is limited to about 127 MBps for all PCI devices.

So you don't want to buy a controller.

--

BTW there are no SATA II devices! The SATA-IO board specifically prohibits any products being labeled as SATA II. SATA 3.0 Gbps does not equal SATA II.

The SATA-IO board is against the SATA II label because it implies that SATA 150 drives have "generation 1" features while SATA 3.0 drives have "generation 2" features and that a SATA 3.0 drive can be assumed to be more advanced or better than a SATA 150.

In actuality there are many SATA 150 drives that are faster and implement more SATA II specifications than your typical SATA 3.0 drives.

So SATA 150 vs SATA 3.0 is just like ATA 100 vs ATA 133. A specification that should basically be ignored when evaluating a hard drive.

 

[chocobocorey]

good information codesmith. one thing to ask- is it true that buying a sata card is pointless cause it wouldnt be as a fast as having the motherboard with build in sata ports?

 

[aireq]

Thanks that answers my question. Sorry I guess I meant SATA 300 not SATA II. I figured the limiting factor was the drive, but I just wanted to make sure that there wasn't something else I should consider.

Eric

SATA 3.0 Gbps has a maximum theoretical tranfer rate of 300 MBps, SATA 150 has 150 MBps. These are per drive and not shared.

SATA drives have yet to break the 100 MBps barrier, so it will be a long time before you see drives exceeding 150 MBps.

Plus PCI bus is limited to about 127 MBps for all PCI devices.

So you don't want to buy a controller.

--

BTW there are no SATA II devices! The SATA-IO board specifically prohibits any products being labeled as SATA II. SATA 3.0 Gbps does not equal SATA II.

The SATA-IO board is against the SATA II label because it implies that SATA 150 drives have "generation 1" features while SATA 3.0 drives have "generation 2" features and that a SATA 3.0 drive can be assumed to be more advanced or better than a SATA 150.

In actuality there are many SATA 150 drives that are faster and implement more SATA II specifications than your typical SATA 3.0 drives.

So SATA 150 vs SATA 3.0 is just like ATA 100 vs ATA 133. A specification that should basically be ignored when evaluating a hard drive.

 

[emogoch]

Codesmith is partially right, but there are a few things that he fails to point out.

Firstly, the "enhanced" SATA spec, whatever you want to call it, provides for more features than just the 3.0Gbps transfer rate. The problem with the spec is that is only specified technical implementations and communication standard between devices (yes, a simplistic view, but one to get hte point across), but not a certification standard that could be used to validate a drive as "SATA II". The end result is that manufactures can chose which features to include, and which to leave out. Some of these features include eSATA, NCQ, and port multiplying.

Now, most SATAII chipsets implement all these features, so it's mostly that HDD that you have to see which include them and which don't. Depending on what you're using your computer for, having a HDD / chipset combo that implements NCQ can have a very tangible performance gain.

The second point to make here is that there is a performance benefit to SATA 3.0 Gbps, but it's a small one. HDDs have RAM caches on them. the standard now is 8 MB, leaning towards 16 MBs in larger / high-end drives. Well the data transfer from the cache happens a lot faster than stright from the platter. Infact, those caches can flood a 3.0 Gbps connection. Of course, they're only 16MB caches, so that flooding doesn't last long, but it is there. This is while you'll see in HDD reviews both the BURST (RAM cache) and SUSTAINED (platter) transfer rates.

Given all this though, you are still limited by the PCI bus, so you won't get any speed enhancements from a SATA 3.0Gb chipset.

 

[Codesmith]

On SATA 150 drives implement just as many advanced features as specified by the SATA II standard. They are the same generation compliing to the same specification they just differ only in interface speed they chose to implement.

Anandtech has done benchmarking and concluded that there is no performance delta when disabling SATA 3.0 for an SATA 3.0 drive, except for cache read which they conclude are meaningless.

The cache is for the drives own personal use. Windows does its own drive cach with memory thats is orders of magnitute faster.

 

[emogoch]

On SATA 150 drives implement just as many advanced features as specified by the SATA II standard. They are the same generation compliing to the same specification they just differ only in interface speed they chose to implement.

Isn't that what I said?