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Maxtor 16 mb cache

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firebat45

Member
Joined
Jan 27, 2005
Location
Edmonton, Canada
im going to be buying a 200GB maxtor with the 16mb cache in a few days, im just wondering if its worth the extra $20 to go for SATA. the PATA versions are ATA 133, and the serial ATA are SATA150, not much of a performance gain. which drives are more likely to be nearer their max speed more of the time, and is it worth $20 that i can spend somewhere else?
 
You are not going to see any performance gains with SATA over PATA unless you RAID multiple drives together, reason being that the drive itself is only capable of running at about 50-60 MB/S so you only use the extra bandwidth if you have many hard drives working in tandem
 
thanks, im just going to stick with PATA now. Are you sure ill only get 50-60 mb/s? i currently get 58mb/s sustained and 105 burst with my old 80gb 7200RPM 8mb cache maxtor
 
id get sata just due to the fact that its becomign the new standard why even bother with pata. sata is faster plus u get smaller cables it works out. there are other reasons too but these are just 2 little ones
 
Wathnix said:
You are not going to see any performance gains with SATA over PATA unless you RAID multiple drives together, reason being that the drive itself is only capable of running at about 50-60 MB/S so you only use the extra bandwidth if you have many hard drives working in tandem
are u kidding the sata will go so much aster than the pata the sata is definatly worth the extra 20$
 
sean478 said:
are u kidding the sata will go so much aster than the pata the sata is definatly worth the extra 20$

Nope he's not. Nor am I. There is simply no difference in speed between two drives if all they have different is a SATA of PATA connection. SATA is nicer becuase more motherboard can do RAID easier compared to a PATA RAID.
 
sean478 said:
are u kidding the sata will go so much aster than the pata the sata is definatly worth the extra 20$
Not unless you're running a raptor which is the only hdd with burst speeds that can break the ata 133 barrier(if you get lucky)
 
sory i wasnt speaking in theory i was speaking from personal experense with 2 of the same drives 1 sata and 1 pata the sata transfers at 40-45 and the pata transfers at 25-30 acording to sisoft sandra ;) in the same rig :D and i can definatly tell the difrence when loading windows off the pata as aposed to the sata
 
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Then you have:
A. Bad drivers
B. Unoptimal dma settings
C. Two completely different drives. I doubt you have two of the exact same drives, a pata version and one having an sata bridge, which is the way most sata hdds are.

If the one drive is native sata, then its not the same drive so that doesnt count.
 
SATA and PATA currently provide teh same transfer rates. SATA was created to use smaller cables and also to open up for the future in drives with higher speeds/transfer rates, something not totally relaying on the PCI bus.

Both drives will preform the same if they are close enough in models/feature. If you want to get SATA drives thats cool, personally I like them better, better to route cables around and definalty easier too, provides better airflow. When getting new drives SATA will be the way I go.
 
Prodigious said:
Then you have:
A. Bad drivers
B. Unoptimal dma settings
C. Two completely different drives. I doubt you have two of the exact same drives, a pata version and one having an sata bridge, which is the way most sata hdds are.

If the one drive is native sata, then its not the same drive so that doesnt count.
a.no they perform the same on other oss (redhat)
b.nope they are all to highest
c.maby how do i tell if there is a bridge they look identical except for the sate/pata conection and slight difs in pcb of course
 
Give me the model numbers and I'll be able to find out for you. Most drives aren't native sata, but either way, I dont think they are the same drive. Sata will not give you a 10mbps boost on identical drives, it simply doesnt work that way. You have to understand that the physical maximum transfer rate on all hdd's are well below ata133 spec and so you're not gonna get boosted performance from sata right now(except with certain features such as ncq which are debatable). There is no logical explanation for one drive outperfomring the other by 25% unless there is something messed up.
 
just ordered the 200 a few days ago, Parallel ATA, not Serial. I know serial is the new standard, but i'll worry about that next time i upgrade. RAID is not a concern for me, i would never RAID. (Striping just seems a bit iffy, mirroring is a huge waste of space.)
When i get my drive, ill run a Sandra Benchmark, and post the results here.
 
dark_15 said:
Nope he's not. Nor am I. There is simply no difference in speed between two drives if all they have different is a SATA of PATA connection. SATA is nicer becuase more motherboard can do RAID easier compared to a PATA RAID.

If only the technology would run at it's rated speed (both sata and pata)... Imagine if processors were like that. I order a 3.0GHz P4 and get performance of a 1.5GHz. I wouldn't be happy.
 
Some of the new SATA drives that are native like the Maxtor 16mb SATA drives support NCQ and with NCQ enabled it can make a pretty good impact on performance in alot of areas.

You should check storagereview for comparison results.
 
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