SATA Hard-Disks...

[.Churr.]

Hello guys,

I bought a motherboard with SATA (Asrock 939Dual SATA2) and a SATA2 HD Hitachi Deskstar 7K80).

Apparently the SATA2 mode must be activated using a "Feature Tool" (provided by Hitachi) instead of using jumpers like most of the SATA/SATA2 Hds...

But when I "assembled" my PC I connected the HD to the SATA2 "port" (whats the correct word?) instead of SATA... I had a lot of troubles installing Windows. After eventually installing it, I use it once and the HD stops working. I cant format it or delete the partitions...

Do SATA2 HDs need some special "care" or it was really my fault? Can I change the operation mode (IDE to SATA) after installing Windows?? Is there any problem in connecting SATA HDs to SATA2 "ports"?

And, supposely SATA2's transfer speed is 3x faster than ATA100 (300 Mb/s), does this have any real performance effect when playing BF2??
When I bought the HD I wanted that the "Verifying Client Data" part were a little faster...

Thanks :)

[Scinto]

Re: SATA Hard-Disks...

http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/53FD870FC4F08F7786256E44007A149F/$file/D7K80_IG.pdf

took some digging but should be able to help

(ill come to this problem too when i come to reformatting my comp sometime soon)

[K8T]

Re: SATA Hard-Disks...

And, supposely SATA2's transfer speed is 3x faster than ATA100 (300 Mb/s), does this have any real performance effect when playing BF2??

Not sure if you have ever heard the saying your computers is only as fast as your slowest component?

[.Churr.]

Re: SATA Hard-Disks...

Not sure if you have ever heard the saying your computers is only as fast as your slowest component?

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (will update to 3800+ soon)
2GB of RAM (2x1GB Corsair Dual channel)
MSI Radeon X1600PRO 256MB

Not too bad I guess.

[LoD]

Re: SATA Hard-Disks...

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (will update to 3800+ soon)
2GB of RAM (2x1GB Corsair Dual channel)
MSI Radeon X1600PRO 256MB

Not too bad I guess.

dont get the 3800+ until you get a better video card. For $300 you can pick up a 7900GT or x1800XT and it will run circles around your x1600. I am assuming your a gamer, and dual core doesnt help games.

[Laike]

Re: SATA Hard-Disks...

I think it's not gonna really affect your BF2 much, but it will help when you install it, or install windows.

[lil_jimmy_norton]

Re: SATA Hard-Disks...

The only benefit SATA2 offers is NCQ. The interface transfer speed doesn't make a diffrence because the internal transfer speed is still the same as any other 7200rpm disk. Look at the Raptor, it's 10k rpm and isn't bottlenecked by the interface speed, why would a 7200rpm be?

[imported_Wreck]

Re: SATA Hard-Disks...

The only benefit SATA2 offers is NCQ. The interface transfer speed doesn't make a diffrence because the internal transfer speed is still the same as any other 7200rpm disk. Look at the Raptor, it's 10k rpm and isn't bottlenecked by the interface speed, why would a 7200rpm be?

Exactly. If you want a performance difference then the 16mb cache on the newer drives will give you far better results than the transfer rate of the drive.