Well, if you were wondering about the advantages of SATA-II over regular IDE ATA or Ultra ADA harddrives, you’re not alone. I built myself a new computer from scratch this past week, and part of is was moving to SATA technology for performance reasons. Now that I have this new system, and went through the effort and money to get some more performance, I want to know if it really was worth it. Are they better?
These following tests are comparisons between different SATA-II RAID-0 arrays and my old Ultra-ATA 100 harddrive. I never invested in SATA harddrives, because I felt their performance was only marginally better than IDE ATA drives and that the little gains weren’t worth the investment. However, now with SATA-II 300 (triple the speed of Ultra ATA 100), I felt this was definately worth a shot. And to gain even more performance, I set up 3 identical SATA-II drives in a striped raid configuration for maximum performance.
I did not test performance differences between the various raid setups (RAID-0, RAID-1, RAID-0+1, RAID-5). My tool of choice for benchmarking my harddrives was to use HD Tach due to its easy of use, clear graphical reporting, and small file size. Additionaly I purchased some aftermarket SATA-II data cables that can deal with a throughput of SATA-II 3Gb/s. I will compare these with the standard SATA cables that came with the Motherboard (DFI LanParty nF4 SLI-DR). I would also like to note that the Hitachi drives come stock at SATA 150. To ‘unlock’ the SATA 300 capability you must download the Hitachi Feature Tool (should it not come with your drive).
Let’s get started:
Benchmark A: Seagate Barracuda ST3200822A
Purpose: To get a baseline to compare SATA-II performance against.
Specs: 200GB, 7200 RPM, 8MB Cache, IDE Ultra ATA100
Results: Not very impressive, but I suspect the performance of this drive reflects drive performance of the average Joe’s computer. Bottom line is that it’s top data throughput was very close to the labeled 100 MB/sec: it closed out at 95.6MB/sec.
Benchmark B: Hitachi Deskstar HDT722516DLA380
Purpose: To determine the stock performance of a SATA-II 300 drive.
Specs: 160 GB, 7200 RPM, 8MB Cache, SATA-II 300 (also referred to as 3Gb/sec*)
Results: The results are undoubtedly higher than the Seagate drive. This drive clocked in at 223.6MB/sec. While nowhere near the theoretical throughput of 300MB/sec, it performs more than twice as good as the Seagate.
Benchmark C: Hitachi Deskstar HDT722516DLA380 w/Aftermarket Data Cable
Purpose: To determine if aftermarket data cables are necessary for 3Gb/s drives (all SATA data cables can perform at least at 1.5Gb/s.
Specs: 160 GB, 7200 RPM, 8MB Cache, SATA-II 300 (also referred to as 3Gb/sec*)
Results: These results had me a bit surprised: 223.7MB/sec. I expected the greater quality of the aftermarket cables to outperform the stock MoBo SATA cables. They don’t seem to. I heard on various forums that data cables can be and often are a bottleneck for the 3Gb/s drives, but I have to take from this that DFI really had their act together when they put this motherboard and its accessories together.
Benchmark D: 3x Hitachi Deskstar HDT722516DLA380 RAID-0 Single Partition
Purpose: To compare a RAID-0 setup to a standalone drive and see if RAID-0 really has marked performance gain.
Specs: 3 identical drives, 160 GB, 7200 RPM, 8MB Cache, SATA-II 300 (also referred to as 3Gb/sec*)
Results: RAID rocks! It makes SATA-II standalone look like an old whimp: 340MB/s. I’m sold.
Benchmark E: 3x Hitachi Deskstar HDT722516DLA380 RAID-0 3 Partitions
Purpose: I don’t want to use a single 480GB drive for all my stuff, so this test is to determine if there is any performance loss using partitions.
Specs: 3 identical drives, 160 GB, 7200 RPM, 8MB Cache, SATA-II 300 (also referred to as 3Gb/sec*)
Results: The difference to the previous test is so small, that I wouldn’t even consider it a factor: using partitions I still got a throughput of 338MB/s on my RAID-0.
Conlusion: If you want to get the most out ouf your drive performance without going to SCSI and spending tons of money on controllers and drives, get SATA-II 300s. I couldn’t find them in stored, but people are selling them on Ebay for cheaper than the standard IDE drives! Even if you’re not going for a performance upgrade you might want to consider them if your motherboard supports SATA-II 300. Total cost for my upgrade:
3 Hitachi drives on Ebay: $250
1 DFI LanParty nF4 SLI-DR: $190
Total Cost: $440
I definately think it was worth it, since I expect my new setup to last me between 3 and 5 years without needing an upgrade.
Please: let me know your SATA experiences. Are you satisfied, or are yours not performing up to par?
* Please note that the advertised 3Gb/sec (giga-bit) is not 3GB/sec (giga-byte). The actual transfer rate of 3Gb/s is 0.375GB/sec, or 375MB/sec.
9 Responses to "How much better is SATA-II really?"
PC2
Ok, here is the question. What controls SATA 300 availability?? Or, what keeps a Motherboard with SATA 150 compatability from becoming SATA 300? Is it in the CMOS/BIOS or is it in a control chip that can't be changed/flashed?
I've been looking for a difinitive answer and cannot find one or any mention to what controls SATA data transfer. There are tests that have been done between so called SATA 150 cables, and SATA 300 cables and a difference between them have been minor, or in said in another way, there was no real world difference between the 150 and 300 labled cables.
So then, what can be done to make a M.B. that is SATA150 a M.B. that is SATA 300?? PCI controller cards, I'm convinced, are not the answer. They have a maximum BURST rate and simply cannot keep up with known tests with M.B. 's that are SATA 300 with SATA 300 H.D.'s.
I am convinced that someone really knows and can answer this question, so lets see who you are. No oppinions will be accepted, only the cold hard facts. Thank you very much.
Paul
Mike
Hi Paul,
You pose some very fair questions. However, I have to warn you that I cannot give you any hard facts, I can only tell you my observations in all of this (I'm no hardware tech, and my benchmarking was only a semi-solid solution that works for me to highlight the performance).
First off, you are totally right about the SATA cables. There is only a minimum difference in performance. My observation has been that the aftermarket SATA 300 cables were of substancially higher quality, as well as larger diameter wiring, than the cheap ones supplied with most motherboards. All in all, I would only expect someone to get the aftermarket cables if they needed every last bit of performance, say in server clusters, graphics processing, audio processing, and that sort; the average user wouldn't or couldn't even tell the difference.
As far as what controls the speed difference between 150 and 300 MB/s? Well, I think it's a combination of the controller and the harddrive. The reason I think the harddrive has alot to do with it is because even the 300 Gb/s harddrives are packaged as 150 by default. You have to manually enable the 300 MB/s feature using manufacturer software, which will then reconfigure the ROM on the harddrive. I'm not sure how much the controller plays into this, because I don't have to change any settings in the BIOS for the controller. So it may actually only be the harddrive that determines the limits. However, you won't get 300 MB/s out of a controller that is designed for only 150 MB/s.
I know these aren't the cold hard facts, but perhaps they'll lead you to some in your research. Let me know what you find out, I'd be interested.
Cheers,
Mike
Chuck Bigbie
Hi Mike I have a new ASUS A8N-SLI Premium mb and 4 Western digital Caviar SE16 WD2500KS 250gb 7200 rmp sata 3.0 gb/s and I have them in the Raid 10 config on the Nvida controller and the data performace on the HD tach was in the 115 range! I don't know if the cable as supplied by ASUS are the problem, your report does not indicate that they are the problem. I cannot find a flash program to speed up the drive, do you have any suggestiions on who to call for support ASUS or WD or did I do something wrong?
thanks,
Chuck Bigbie
Mike
Interesting issue you are having, Chuck. From my limited research I have been able to do on your issue, it appears that both the hard-drives and the motherboard fully support the 3Gb/s data transfer rate. I was able to find something though, that might lock your hard-drives to only 1.5Gb/s: check out this link, and make sure your jumpers aren't set like this: Western Digital Knowledge Base.
Also, I'm not sure what your BIOS settings look like, but you might want to read through your manual and check if you have to explicitly enable the 3Gb/s setting (it may default to 1.5Gb/s).
I'll post more if I find anything else. Good luck!
Mike
Mike
Chuck, another thing you might try:
You wrote that you had your raid set up as 1+0. Try setting it up as raid 0 only (for testing purposes). When installing Windows, also make sure that you install the raid drivers provided on the disk (you'll need to press F6 at the beginning of the setup process).
Run HD-Tach on this new Windows installation, and see what you drive speeds are. They should be significantly higher. My initial guess is that because you set up your raid to be mirroring, the mirroring process is slowing down your speeds you would gain by striping alone (striping is raid 0, mirroring is raid 1). If you want to stick with mirroring, try setting it up as raid 0+1 instead of raid 1+0. That way the striping process may take precedence over the mirroring process. I haven't experimented with these settings myself (yet) since I only have 3 hardddrives, but will likely do so in the future when I upgrade to either 4 or 6 harddrives. Please share you findings, I'm interested to see what happens.
Cheers,
Mike
Tom
Thank you very much for your SATA-II review, Mike. I've been Googling for something like this for a few days and finally found your blog here. The lack of info on SATA-II performance put my buying decision on hold. Now, thanks to you, I know what to get! I'm going to go with this new SATA-II solution. I think I'll get the ASUS A8N-E mobo (S939 A64/nForce4 Ultra chip) and 2x 250GB WD Caviar SE16 SATAII-300 7200RPM 16MB cache HDDs which I'm going to RAID-0.
Anonymous
Mike,
I am trying to put together a Raid 0 config using 2X WD3200KS Hard drives. My ASUS MB came with 2 3Gbps cables but they are small for my computer case.
Where can I buy 2 X 40" long SATA II cables ?
I was browsing throught the net and found all cables for 150Mbps only. None for 300Mbps.
Mike
Hi Anonymous,
Depending on where you are living Fry's electronics is a good bet (which is where I get my cables). But you are right, the 300 Mbps cables are a bit more rare than the 150 Mbps cables.
Try this search for online availability of SATA cables: http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=sata+cable+300&hl=en&btnG=Search
Let me know if I can be of any further assistance.
Good luck!
Greg Kelly
Mike,
You are awesome. Thank you so much for being so nice and supportive of all the previous posts and so helpful throughout. You have sold me on the drive and raid0. Thank you so much.