Speed issue with a couple of sata HDs

[Jimbond87]

Ok, so I was a little curious and was messing around with some speed testing on my hard drives, now for some reason, prolly due to a bad install or some settings, my hard drives which it says should be running at around 300 million bytes per second only sustains speed at 68ish. It is a 7200 Hitachi 400 gig HD connected using Sata. Is this an issue or do I just not know whats goin on?

 

[IH8U]

This is a non issue, while yes the HDD can do close to the 300M bytes, the bus cannot push enough data (fills, and backs up) think of it like traffic, you have 1 breakdown/accident on the highway and traffic just backs up. Same issue the bus fills up faster than the read/write heads can do their job (only as fast as your slowest part). this is one reason why RAID arrays are used (more drives in RAID = more data at once)(depending on the array) It is the equivalent of an 8 lane highway (wheras the single drive is a 2 lane).

 

[4745454b]

Ignore everything IH8U said. There is no way your 400GB drive can "do close to the 300M bytes. He actually has it backwards. The bus can move that fast, but the drive can not.

It is like a highway. In your case, the speed limit is 300MBps. But your "car" can only go 68MBps. (You don't need to worry about how many lanes you have.)

 

[Jimbond87]

ok great feedback thank you very much

 

[4745454b]

No problem.

I didn't mention it in my first post, but ~70MBs is fine for an older 400GB drive. I don't think you have any issues at all. (if you reported 50MBs there be some checking to do...)

 

[krash3x]

Alot of times the hard drives come with a jumper in side that cover 2 of the 4 prongs on the hard drive where you plug in the sata plug. the jumper is there for people that 1.5 gbps is the maximum speed that the sata can take. They are alot of times left on and that will cause the computer to run slow. I'm not sure about the brand that you are using but seagate you just remove the jumper and the read and write speeds are alot better. I had a hard drive in this machine for a year and didnt take out that jumper and my friend's computer booted alot quicker until I remove that jumper. You may want to find the instructions for your hd and mother board and see if you can get (if you dont have it already) the full potential of your hard drive an dmother board

 

[IH8U]

Srry, 2 hours of sleep and no coffee (got called in to work).

 

[4745454b]

A 400GB harddrive is an older one. Standard current sizes are 320, 500, 750, etc. 400GB drives are based off of older aerial densities, and as such can not hit the ~80MBs+ that current drives can.

Again, he can check the jumper if he wants, but increasing the speed limit of the highway isn't going to make his car go faster. Only a new car will.