Hard drive SATA question

I have a Seagate ST9200420AS hard drive, which is a SATA 300 HD, but I am wondering if there is any way to determine if the drive is running in SATA 300 or SATA 150. I know you can physically remove the hard drive and check if there are any jumpers in place but I'd like to avoid this if possible. The only reason I ask is because my previous notebook, the Asus G50V-A2, came with SATA 300 Seagates but they had jumpers in place that limited them to SATA 150 which was odd. Just want to make sure I don't have that problem here. Thanks!

 

If your drive is in IDE/Compatibility Mode, it will have a max throughput of 133MB/s (UDMA 6/133).

If your drive is in AHCI Mode, it will function in SATA2 mode and have a max throughput of 300MB/s. (MAX) The drive itself will never jump 70MB/s.

So, the theoretical burst throughput really doesn't help in calculating performance and doesn't affect it in anyway, since HDDs aren't that fast.

If you have XP, you can run HD Tach. Or you can check out the Burst Rate in HD Tune.

 

He is not asking about ATA/AHCI mode, he is asking if he is running it at SATA 3 or SATA 150. The only way I know besides looking at the drive itself (if you have a little jumper on it, it's in SATA 150 mode) would be to test with a program like HD Tune. I'd personally just look

 

lol I know, I just don't wanna open up my laptop. How can I check it in HDTune? I've run this program before, but I don't know what I should be looking at it to see if the HD is running in SATA 300 or SATA 150.

 

Unless you're using an ssd why do you care? No hard drive can max the bandwidth of sata 150.... + sata 300 uses more power?? really no point

 

You'll have to bench it and check the results against that of a SATA 150 drive and a SATA 3 drive.

If this is the case, then why do SATA 300 drives get higher results in benchmarks? Maybe it can't max the bandwidth, but there IS a difference in speeds.

 

What I meant was that if AHCI is disabled, then the drive is not in SATA 2 mode and won't reach the theoretical burst throughput of 300MB/s. It needs to be in AHCI mode, only then it can reach the theoretical burst throughput of 300MB/s or SATA2.

Anyway, I am wrong. No HDD can reach the max theoretical burst throughput. Even if the drive is running UDMA 100 mode, it will give the same performance. I have tested the same drive in IDE and AHCI mode, on notebooks that support upto SATA-150 and SATA-300. Exactly same figures given by HD Tune.

There is no point in checking if the HDD is in SATA1 or SATA2 mode. Bandwidth/Max Throughput at this point, does not affect performance.

One can check the burst rate in HD Tune, or run a HD Tach in XP.

 

How do I check if AHCI is enabled? Is there any advantage/disadvantage to enabling it?

Here's my HDTune results:

 

Can you upload a screenshot of the INFO page ?

 

Absolutely, as soon as you tell me where I can find the INFO page lol

I'm not too proficient in notebook components as you can tell.

 

Have you installed the Intel Matrix Storage Manager ?

 

No, I haven't installed Intel Matrix Storage Manager. I don't even know what that is actually.

I just ran HDTune again. This was done on battery power so I don't know if that makes a difference:

 

Well, thats the max you'll get from a 7200.2 That HDD does seem to be in AHCI mode.

Download and install this. Its for the ICH9 Vista 64. (Specs ^ ?)

 

Yeah, those are my specs. What exactly does the Intel Matrix Storage Manager do?

And you're saying my HD is fine and running in SATA 300?

 

If the HDD is in AHCI mode, and the HDD is a SATA2 HDD, then it will run in SATA2 or SATA-300 mode.

You can verify this in HD Tach, which works only in XP.

http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/matrixstorage_sb.htm

You can either confirm in the BIOS, if AHCI is enabled or not.

Or check which driver is installed in Device Manager > IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers > Serial ATA .... ?

 

Just checked out the Intel Matrix Storage Manager and didn't see any indication that the drive is in AHCI mode. I presume you recommended me to download it to check if it's in AHCI mode or not? I have Vista 64-bit so HD Tach won't work.

 

Device Manager > IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers > Serial ATA .... ?

 

Oh right lol

It says:
Intel(R) ICH9M-E/M SATA AHCI Controller

So then my HD is indeed SATA2 right? I'm still curious about the Storage Manager link you gave me, what was it for?

 

It won't harm the system in anyway, but enable NCQ, and some extra SATA features. Check the links above.

 

Just because it's in AHCI mode does not tell you what SATA mode the drive is functioning in! The only surefire way to know that I know of it to look at the drive itself. SATA 150 and SATA 3 will both work in AHCI mode.

 

Well, why would a SATA2 drive work in SATA1 mode, if the southbridge controller supports SATA2 ?

Anyway, bottom line: SATA 1 or 2/150 or 300, its not going to affect performance. The max that drive can do is 63MB/s, so even if the drive runs in UDMA 100 mode, the performance is going to be same.

 

er... no there isn't.

exactly what i said

 

SATA300 doesn't matter in terms of speed but it does matter in certain aspects. I don't know the technical details but for example it does speed things up when playing a game like WoW, where there are a lot of files.

Anyway, the Intel Matrix Storage Manager shows my HD as a Generation 1 which is 150mb/s. I tried to enable AHCI in my bios but when I hit F2 at the start up screen there is nothing I can do with the hard drive. It just shows the system date and time and the boot sequence. Anyone have any ideas?

 

Not all drive controllers support SATA 3 drives, and in order to use a SATA 3 drive on one of these systems you must clip the drive with a jumper to SATA 150. Most drives ship with this jumper on by default. This is why he could have a SATA 3 drive on a SATA 3 controller functioning at SATA 150 speeds.

 

Oh yes, Jumpers.

ICH9 does support SATA2.

You have AHCI enabled, so why trying to enable AHCI in the BIOS ? (In Advanced Options ?)

HDD does not improve frame rates and stuff. HDD only helps in level-loading and decompressing the textures and stuff. So, it will not affect the performance of WOW. Plus SATA2 won't affect HDD Performance.

Download PC Wizard 2008, and in Drive > No. of Disk Controller > HDD Mode ? | Drive > No. of HDD > Serial ATA version ?

 

Well, I know one specific issue for example that makes a difference. A few users have reported stuttering and sometimes slowed down speeds on their SATA300 HDs but once the jumpers that limit the HD to SATA150 were removed, overall performance improved and the stuttering was gone.

I downloaded PC Wizard. AHCI is indeed on, but take a look at this:

Serial ATA version : 1.0 - (SATA-150)

 

ok I finally grew the balls to open it up and of course the jumper was in place on the hard drive. Just removed it!

Andy, how do I enable those extra SATA features that you mentioned?

 

Install the Intel Matrix Storage Manager from Intel's site (for the PM45 chipset). That will enable NCQ, and a few extra power-efficiency features.

 

Works fine in Vista too.

Right click HD Tach -> properties -> Compatibility
And then check the run it as Windows XP (Service Pack 2).

Works great for me



And i wonder why MrPresident wanna know why it's in SATA2 or not ? You don't seem to know what you're doing anyways, so what's the need? Hehe.
Won't give you any performanceboost if it's sata2 instead of sata. The drive itself can be faster but the sata2-mode won't do anything speciall as been said earlier the drive won't even reach sata1-specs at 150MB/s as you can tell by your benchmark too.
The rest is just placeboeffects i must say, many users reported "better performance" but couldn't show it as they only thought it felt better->placebo

 

I've already explained why I wanted to do it. Even if I won't see any significant performance boost, I learned something new and eased my curiosity.

Andy thanks a lot for everything, I really appreciate it!

 

Totally forgot about the Compatibilty thing.

No Problem.