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SATA controller cards

Tags:
  • Hard Drives
  • SATA
  • Controller
  • Storage
Last response: in Storage
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April 17, 2007 12:00:59 PM

Hello,

I recently went from IDE to SATA for my main disk drive. I have an older mobo, the ASUS A7NX8 Deluxe, which supports only 150 mb/s. However, my drive, a WD 250GB 2500KS can go 300. Also, it's just been a real pain to get the mobo to work properly with SATA it seems, having to update bios and firmware, etc. Plus, despite passing all the tests I could think to throw at it, the drive just seems sluggish compared to my previous IDE drive. Mp3s and video files tend to skip. Windows seems to load slower. I'm guessing because the mobo came out at the dawn of SATA. The controller seems to be the absolute earliest SATA controller from Silicon Image listed on their website.

I wanted to know what options were for buying PCI SATA controller cards. Is this an easy option for fully utilizing SATA 2 and bypassing the mobo's built-in sata controller? Can PCI (standard, not pci-x) handle the full speed of SATA 2? Or am I just fooling myself that this would bring any speed or functionality improvement?

Finally, are there any controller cards that have BOTH internal SATA ports AND external e-SATA ports on the same card?

Thanks.

More about : sata controller cards

April 18, 2007 1:03:52 AM

well, i guess the first thing is that the interface bandwidth is irrelevant, because no hdd is fast enough to matter, even raptors arent fast enough to be bottlenecked by a pata/100 interface, let alone any other 7200s

as far as your hdd seeming slow, you can compare your performance results will hdds on THG hdd charts http://www23.tomshardware.com/storage.html?modelx=33&mo...

but, your current hdd could very well be slower than your other hdd. also, since your hdd uses the newer sata300 interface, and your motherboard doesnt, you might have to change the jumper on the hdd to sata150 (you might have done that already though, or it might have come that way by default)
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