Seagate SATA drive vs. WD PATA drive performance

[manthas]

So I have two systems here, one running a Seagate 120 GB SATA 7200 RPM, 8 mb cache HDD, and the other running a Western Digital PATA 7200 RPM, 8 mb cache HDD. Both systems are running on NF2 Ultra motherboards, but in the system with the WD drive, we are using an add on PCI IDE card to support the larger drive.

Here is my conundrum, though; the Seagate drive's performance falls far short of the WD. I am dealing with a specific application issue, specifically EverQuest, but it is obviously the drive that is giving me grief. I am trying to find out if it is the add on card in the WD system that is giving it the performance boost, or if it is an inherent difference in the drives.

Any suggestions that anyone can provide on this one would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Crashman]

I don't think there's a significant difference between the drives, it's probably one interface working better than the other, it could be due to one driver working better than the other.

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[Mr5oh]

Technically IDE and SATA makes no real difference.

I have run into the same thing. I had to basically identical computers, both had GigaByte 7N400Pro2 boards, both had same drivers and windows updates installed, one had a WD 80 gig 7200 RPM, the other had a Maxtor 80 gig 7200, for some unknown reason the Maxtor generally was twice as fast in any test (Normally I would guess they should be about the same).

Never could figure it out, just seemed to be some sort of fluke. (Both drives are still running, still using that WD as a backup.)

Since you are using an add on card, it sounds like one driver is working more efficently than the other, just as Crashman said.

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[jammydodger]

Are both drives usings DMA mode?

 

[manthas]

Yeah, both drives are running DMA mode. That's one of the first things I make sure is enabled after building the system. So far, my conclusions are leaning towards the IDE host adapter being the problem because the SATA solution on this board is a bridge, rather than a native SATA host controller, so I'm using the Windows native IDE controller because I haven't been able to find anything else that might be better suited for it. (Nothing provided by the manufacturer at all)

I figure I'll look around for a decent SATA add on controller, hopefully Promise makes one as I've had luck with their IDE controllers in the past. I'm hoping that I won't have to reinstall Windows and the other gump that's on my System partition when I swap out the controller, but if I do, I do.

 

[paladin_yang]

Harddisk's cache capability is more important than its interface's kind.

 

[Mr5oh]

I figure I'll look around for a decent SATA add on controller, hopefully Promise makes one

By the time you get done buying SATA controllers, you could probably have bought a motherboard. Might want to compare MB prices to controller prices.

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[manthas]

Not really - $50 for a 2 port SATA controller from Promise vs. $150+ for a good quality mobo worth doing the upgrade to.

 

[RichPLS]

Actually, you can get a SATA board for $20 at NewEgg

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