Sata V's IDE and DDR v's DDRII

redman

Hi

My mainboard supports IDE and SATA, currently I have two IDE's using one as the boot and two SATAs for files.
Wondering if I would see better performance to reverse this - in using a SATA to boot?
(I also notice it's slow to transfer files between the IDE's and SATA.

Second query, I use DDR and my mother board will also support DDRII's. Is there much of a performance difference between them?

Cheers

Redman

Cuddlesworth

It really depends on what chip-set your board is using for Sata and what the Ide and Sata drives are for faster performance.

As for DDR and DDR2 on the same motherboard, I don't think that is possible as it depends on what cpu you are using and which platform. If its one of those stupid Asrok multi platform motherboards don't waste your time, they generally turn around after the next gen comes out and admit it doesn't work.

redman

krazy_8s wrote:

It really depends on what chip-set your board is using for Sata and what the Ide and Sata drives are for faster performance.

As for DDR and DDR2 on the same motherboard, I don't think that is possible as it depends on what cpu you are using and which platform. If its one of those stupid Asrok multi platform motherboards don't waste your time, they generally turn around after the next gen comes out and admit it doesn't work.

Thanks for the comments, it is an ASRock!:o
http://www.asrock.com/product/775Dual-VSTA.htm
So the sata is 1.5Gb/S only and the VIA PT880 Pro/Ultra Chipset

On the memory it only supports one or other not both at the same time. The real question is , is there a speed difference between the two types?

8T8

The actual difference between SATA-150 & SATA-300 is barely noticeable & really only shows in synthetic tests.

However it really depends on the brand of hard drive you have, the latest generation SATA hard drives would have some performance improvement over the IDE drives simply through firmware optimizations and other general improvements to hard drives over the past generation or so.

If the SATA hard drives you have aren't too new then it may not be worth switching over if they are on par with the IDE units.

You'll never notice the difference between DDR & DDR-2 don't bother changing it.

redman

One is a Maxtor DiamondMax 10 250Gb SATA2 (16Mb Cache 7200rpm)bought in June
The other is a Maxtor DiamondMax 10 200Gb SATA2 (8Mb Cache 7200rpm) bought in late 2004
The IDE is a Samsung Spinpoint P80 9ms ATA133 160Gb 7200RPM 8Mb
from late 2003 and the current boot disk is older again but unsure of it's spec.

Don't want to spend a weekend transferring to the SATA as primary, unless it's worth it of course.

Redman

8T8

Looks like you will be having a busy weekend then

Of the drives you list the Maxtor DiamondMax 10 250GB SATA2 (16MB Cache 7200rpm) would be a better choice as your primary HD.

Nice drives perform well overall and better than others in certain tasks I have 4 of the 300GB versions in my PC.

redman

Is there anyway to speed up transfer between the drives, particularly between the IDE and SATA?

8T8

redman wrote:

Is there anyway to speed up transfer between the drives, particularly between the IDE and SATA?

Are you referring to the copy speed between the drives on the IDE & SATA bus if so then no not really other than buying faster hard drives.

The only possible performance limitation that could come up if were either the IDE or SATA controller was attached to the PCI bus but from reviewing the manual on your motherboard neither are.

You could make sure you have up to date VIA chipset drivers whether the SATA/IDE driver in the package will make any difference I couldn't say but even if it did it would probably be a small one.

SeanW

redman wrote:

One is a Maxtor DiamondMax 10 250Gb SATA2 (16Mb Cache 7200rpm)bought in June
The other is a Maxtor DiamondMax 10 200Gb SATA2 (8Mb Cache 7200rpm) bought in late 2004
The IDE is a Samsung Spinpoint P80 9ms ATA133 160Gb 7200RPM 8Mb
from late 2003 and the current boot disk is older again but unsure of it's spec.

Don't want to spend a weekend transferring to the SATA as primary, unless it's worth it of course.

Redman

Your Maxtors each have more disk space (therefore likely more platters) and more cache memory than your IDE drive. So they, especially the newest one, are likely to be noticeably faster than the IDE.

redman

8T8 wrote:

Are you referring to the copy speed between the drives on the IDE & SATA bus if so then no not really other than buying faster hard drives.

The only possible performance limitation that could come up if were either the IDE or SATA controller was attached to the PCI bus but from reviewing the manual on your motherboard neither are.

You could make sure you have up to date VIA chipset drivers whether the SATA/IDE driver in the package will make any difference I couldn't say but even if it did it would probably be a small one.

Yes I meant copying between them and thanks for going to the effort to check that out for me in the manual .

redman

SeanW wrote:

Your Maxtors each have more disk space (therefore likely more platters) and more cache memory than your IDE drive. So they, especially the newest one, are likely to be noticeably faster than the IDE.

Thanks SeanW