SATA hdd

[DjVanDyk]

Hey guys. Does booting XP PRO from an SATA hdd does it make it faster to boot then regular IDE hdd. like can u see the difference in speed in boot up?

IT'S NICE TO BE IMPORTANT, BUT ITS MORE IMPORTANT TO BE NICE.................

 

[Vapor]

yeah, there should be some noticable difference in boot times, depending on the IDE and SATA drives you are comparing. what drives are you comparing?

 

[DjVanDyk]

Ok listen. Right now I have Maxtor 40 gb which I belive is ata 133 hard drive which JUST XP SITS ON IT......then I have a 100 gb hard drive for all my other wonderful stuff. Now......if I get one of those IMPRESSIVE 150MB/SEC 8mb Cache WD 80 gb hard drive and put xp on it I mean I should be able to see the difference right I MEAN ITS 150MB/SEC THATS IMPRESSIVE. Now..I need to the stripped thing right?

IT'S NICE TO BE IMPORTANT, BUT ITS MORE IMPORTANT TO BE NICE.................

 

[Vapor]

first of all, no IDE drive ever really has the constant throughput of what it is rated (ATA/133, 100, 66, 33). ATA/133 has no real performance gain over ATA/100. They only ever run at 50 to 60 MB/sec on a very good day, and will rarely even peak at their 133MB/sec or 100MB/sec rated speed. That said, SATA 150 will run noticably faster than any IDE drive, i have seen reviews where one SATA 150 drive matches the speed of a RAID level 0 configuration of ATA/100 drives. This is because it runs a dedicated line to each drive, so there is no 'master' or 'slave,' just a drive, a very small cable, and the connector on a SATA controller or SATA equipped motherboard, no jumpers, no 80pin ribbon cable. The benchmarks of SATA drives are considerably faster than most IDE drives, and the peak speed is much higher. but you need more than just the drive...you need a SATA cable, a SATA equipped mobo or pci controller, and (depending on the drive) a SATA power adapter.

If you are just looking for startup times, it is simply not worth the upgrade. If you want overall added performance, go with SATA. If you are comfortable with the size of your current boot drive (40GB), go with the raptor. it is 37.6 GB, 10000 RPM (HUGE performance gain), and the only drive that can really take advantage of what SATA has to offer. If you just want an 80GB SATA drive, get the WD that you mentioned before.

As for RAID 0 (striping), you need two like drives and a raid contoller. Promise makes very good controllers if you do not already have one built into your mobo. SATA in RAID 0 is VERY fast, and you will definitely notice a speedup in boot times for XP as well as every other area of performance. Problem is, if one drive crashes, you lose the combined data on the two of them.

if you really are serious about getting a performance boost, and not just faster boot up times, get SATA, if you want faster boot up times, there are some apps out there (I even think there is one in the MS PowerToys package) that will load xp into the ram when booting and expedite startup. once started, it will unload xp back to the hd. I think it is called tweakui.

 

[DjVanDyk]

ok man MY motherboard ASUS P4G8X DELUXE has em 2 SATA things and yes I got the cables too. Even my power supply has power connector for Sata hard drive just one though. So there is absolutely no way that I can just do it with one hard drive..I mean does it have to be 2 LOL..Whats my BEST CHOICE if I want like my os to load up faster and EVERYTHING ELSE TO LOAD UP FASTER games, jbuilder whatever u know...LIke WHAT DO U RECOMMEND me......cuz I am new to this sata stuff

IT'S NICE TO BE IMPORTANT, BUT ITS MORE IMPORTANT TO BE NICE.................

 

[Vapor]

the fastest SATA drive available today is the Western Digital Raptor, it is 36.7GB when formatted, is 10000RPM, SATA/150, 5.2ms seek time, 5 year warrantee (AMAZING, considering most ATA drives now only have a 1 yr warrantee). In my opinion, this is the best boot drive available for the dollar -- including SCSI/320 drives.

 

[DjVanDyk]

Ok thats not what I meant though. What I meant was. Like what kinda installation is best for me. And do I really have to buy 2 hard drives can I use the 40 gig that I allready have? U know what I mean I wanna get like 80 gb wdc 7200 and what do I do do next? Do I have to buy another 80 gb?

IT'S NICE TO BE IMPORTANT, BUT ITS MORE IMPORTANT TO BE NICE.................

 

[Vapor]

not quite sure exactly what you mean, but here is an answer to what i think you are wondering. You can keep your 40gb that you already have on the IDE channel if you want to use it. If you don't want to spend the money for a 2nd 80GB sata drive, don't. No sense having a 160GB boot drive (two 80s in a RAID 0 config will be VERY fast, but will look like a 160GB drive to windows). One 80GB SATA drive is plenty fast (def faster than maxtor 40gb) and decently priced. You may do what you want with your 40gb, leave it on the IDE channel or save it for later use (i.e., you are still allowed to have as many IDE drives as you can fit on a channel when you install the SATA drive).

I would not use the 40gb for windows or ANY apps, if you want improved performance, use your fastest drive for that, which would be the SATA drive. Put whatever you want on the 40gb and the 100gb, just no apps.

 

[DjVanDyk]

Ok thats excellent THANX A BUNCH.....now how do I install THAT ONE 80 GB....I mean does it have to stripped or mirrored or do I just plug it in there and I am all set?

IT'S NICE TO BE IMPORTANT, BUT ITS MORE IMPORTANT TO BE NICE.................

 

[Vapor]

plug it in, install xp, and install it on that drive

if it doesnt work (i'm not sure if the WD drive needs drivers installed), restart, load the CD, at the VERY BEGINNING, when it asks on the bottom to press F6 to install third party SCSI or RAID drivers, press F6, install any drivers that came with it, and install xp from there.

whether or not the WD needs drivers installed, it should be VERY easy to install, nothing fancy needed.