SATA or SATA-2 ?

sbohdan · Post by **sbohdan** » Wed Oct 12, 2005 10:10 pm

what is the difference between SATA and SATA-2 ? is SATA-2 compatible with all mobos? what is the speed difference? anyone? thanks for any response.

Virusx86 · Post by **Virusx86** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 1:37 am

I may be wrong, but my understanding is that SATA2 motherboards are backwards compatible with SATA drives, but SATA2 drives are not compatible with regular SATA motherboards. It probably depends on the drive though.

SATA2 is an evolution of SATA, supports some new features, faster transfer, and what not else to move towards the future. Think AGP4x vs AGP8x.

Kerii · Post by **Kerii** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 1:43 am

Well... for starters, it's SATA-II, not SATA-2 (no I'm not nit picking, it's because the II is actually part of the acronym), and just because a drive is listed as SATA-II doesn't mean it's capable of 3.0Gbps. It's a long story, but to be safe, stick with drives that identify themselves specifically as 3.0Gbps or as SATA-IO.

It is compatible with older SATA150 motherboards though, so no worries there.

I don't know too much about the performance differences, as I've yet to see any benchmarks. Maybe it's just not worth writing about? Who knows.

Main differences are SATA-IO drives supporting NCQ and Hot Plug, which hopefully all manufacturers will implement instead of leaving out to save costs. There's already too much technical knowledge required to get a good deal on computers today, we don't need even more complexities added to the mix, especially to a component that's been fairly stable.

sbohdan · Post by **sbohdan** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 2:12 am

ok, so is it compatible with my abit IC7-G and If yes would it be faster than SATA?

Kerii · Post by **Kerii** » Sat Oct 15, 2005 4:42 pm

Well... if your motherboard is limited to SATA150, then it's pretty safe to say that the SATA 3.0Gbps drive will lower itself to SATA150 speeds for compatibility. So not much point getting one unless you plan to upgrade in the near future to a new motherboard.

Besides, after searching around a bit after the last post, it seems the word around the review sites is generally you'll be unlikely to reach anywhere near 3.0Gbps unless you have a SATA RAID setup (even then only 2.0Gbps). The things holding back the transfer rates are the drives, not the interface, but that's generally true for all computer hardware.

I'd personally just stick with SATA150 for now. Cheaper, and you don't have to worry about compatibility issues. Yeah, they say it's backwards compatible, but that's not the first time I've heard that statement from a hardware manufacturer.

kenc51 · Post by **kenc51** » Sat Oct 15, 2005 5:31 pm

SATA ver. 2 and 1.. both have either 150MB or 300MB respectivly as their max bandwith... this is for each channel seperatly, ie. 150mb for each drive... since the best drives come now-where near 150MB - I wouldn't worry.. Raid doesn't come into it..since each drive has either 150MB or 300Mb each!

ver. 2 is compatable with older controllers.. just you don't get NCQ etc.

gvblake22 · Post by **gvblake22** » Sat Oct 15, 2005 6:37 pm

If you're buying a HDD, you might as well make sure it is SATA II with 3.0Mb/s and NCQ.
The performance differences aren't huge, but it is worth your while to take note of. Prettymuch all of the performance difference however comes from NCQ (Native Command Queing); which is only found on SATA II drives so make sure it says it has NCQ.
Here is an early comparison between two seagate 7200.7 drives, one with NCQ and one without:
http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/20041116/index.html

The reason the 3.0Mb/s spec doesn't really mean much in terms of performance is because current hard drives can't really even barely ever hit the SATA standard of 150Mb/s. The drives just physically aren't fast enough yet to utilize the large ammount of bandwidth offered with SATA and SATA II.

But long story short, just get a drive with NCQ and 3.0Mb/s and you'll be all set

I believe they should all be backward compatable but if your motherboard chipset doesn't support the SATA II standard, I don't think NCQ will work. For instance, the nForce4 Ultra chipset supports SATA II and NCQ while the nForce3 250 chipset only supports SATA so I don't think NCQ would work on the nForce3 chipset, but should work fine on nForce4 Ultra.
Sorry, I'm not up on my intel chipset specs

JTanczos · Post by **JTanczos** » Sat Oct 22, 2005 2:43 am

I was under the understanding that even ATA133 drives didnt use their full bandwidth offered by the channel. I honestly dont see how anything less than a solid state drive would be able to max out the bandwidth on current versions let alone future ones. *shrugs* Time will tell.

JT

kenc51 · Post by **kenc51** » Sat Oct 22, 2005 8:14 am

Ther is no REAL benefit in SATA2

But If your buying a new HDD, I would go with SATA2 just so I have the option to turn on NCQ and use hotswap.

NCQ actually lowers the performance if the drive is used by a single user, It's only good for file / web servers.

BUT if you have a SATA2 drive and controller, then you have the option to turn it on and off... so why not get one?
Also SATA2 drives are made with newer tehnology, so better firmware, supposedly better mechanical parts (more reliable), and not forgetting most of the time more storage space. The price difference isn't that much.

Just remember not all drives that say their SATA2 support all the SATA2 standards.. Some only support 3GB/sec some only NCQ... but If they say they support hotswap... then you should be good to go.. I have yet to see a SATA2 drive which states it supports hot swap and doesn't support the rest!

JTanczos · Post by **JTanczos** » Sat Oct 22, 2005 1:59 pm

Hot swap isnt the end all of hard drives. I have a ATA100 controller that has hot swap and I havent used it once yet.

JT

Heretic · Post by **Heretic** » Sat Oct 22, 2005 9:56 pm

Hot swap is incredibly important for (some) servers...not so much for desktops, and as kenc51 stated, the NCQ feature on the new drives is also a nice feature for servers, but not for normal desktop users (and in the cases I've seen, performance on a regular desktop decreases when you turn on NCQ).

You won't be able to tell the speed differences bandwidth wise...now if you're talking about a 7200rpm drive vs a 10k+ drive, yes, you will see an increase in performance.

docesam · Post by **docesam** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 1:33 am

i think (may be wrong or right) they should start making muli-IO heads harddrives .....

increasing the number of heads will speed up the drive in every way without having to increase PRM ...

any comments ?

Kerii · Post by **Kerii** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 1:50 am

Pretty sure they already do that, and most have already reached the limit of the size constraints on the standard 3.5" drive. You can only stack so many platters in that 1.028" space.

I'm sure they're capable of making a taller drive, but I guess they're not too comfortable venturing into unknown territory or causing confusion.

Personally I wouldn't mind having a double height 3.5" 1TB HD.

docesam · Post by **docesam** » Sat Jan 07, 2006 3:31 am

i think not "taller" but rather wider drive to accomodate e.g 4 read/write heads

this will double the speed of the drive 4 times ... e,g access time will be 1/4 the drive with 1 head

gvblake22 · Post by **gvblake22** » Sat Jan 07, 2006 10:15 am

It will be harder to try and make drives wider (or even taller for that matter) because it will change the entire form factor for the drive. They will not be ablt to fit into any current HDD cage! I don't think that will go over very well with the consumers. I think it would have to coincide with a change in the form factor for everything, so you would have to buy a case, mobo, HDD, PSU to all fit the new form factor.

docesam · Post by **docesam** » Sun Jan 08, 2006 3:25 pm

gvblake22 wrote:It will be harder to try and make drives wider (or even taller for that matter) because it will change the entire form factor for the drive. They will not be ablt to fit into any current HDD cage! I don't think that will go over very well with the consumers. I think it would have to coincide with a change in the form factor for everything, so you would have to buy a case, mobo, HDD, PSU to all fit the new form factor.

i did not mean something like this ... i mean 5 1/4 inch size ... that is it ..