Posted on 2 February 2008 @ 06:56

edited 07:02

Tripps- wrote: Yes, but have you ever done or know any URL/links of reputable sites that have done tests of the latest 500GB, 16MB cache, 7,200RPM PATA for speed (with REAL WORLD not benchmarking simulations) against the same manufacturer's 500GB, 16MB cache, 7,200RPM SATAII drives? Nope, sorry.

I've been attacked on a number of sites that state SATA although capable of faster speed...when compared to a single PATA drive on it's own IDE channel is no faster than a single SATAII.NCQ alone influences performance either positively (multi-queue) or negatively (single-queue), so to say that SATA/PATA makes no difference is wrong. The transfer latency between drive's cache and controller/memory is faster, although this positive effect would be limited.

But if your PATA drive has another device on the same cable, the story gets different and you get huge latencies in between which will affect I/O performance negatively. With SATA you do not have this problem since the interface is exclusive to one harddrive.

Some 'reputable' sites like StorageMark use PCI cards in their testings, and base conclusions on that. That is so dumb, they have put all I/O on a shared PCI bus, ofcourse that will mean deminished results. The article was about RAID0 versus single drive in real world applications.

But admittedly, many people use PCI for storage (quick'n'dirty). I strongly recommend to use chipset or PCIe interface.

I find benchmark programs like HDTune/HDtach that say SATA is faster.
But respected user guru's on those sites say that those programs are not comparable to Real work use of HD's today.Well they are right, HDTune does not even operate on the filesystem level. Problem is that there are no easy and free applications on Windows that test I/O realistically.

One of those applications is called Rankdisk created by Intel. This application will 'capture' (record) all I/O traffic a certain applications produces, and stores this in a pattern. One can then 'replay' this pattern on another disk or RAID array to simulate how fast the application could have written. The problem in here is that this implies that I/O is a 100% bottleneck, or you have to factor in a weight. Conclusion: proper benchmarking is difficult! And even 'reputable' sites produce bad reviews using bad benchmarking conduct. Tom's hardware is one fine example.

But if you ask my opinion, then i think that there should be little difference between PATA or SATA as long as there is only one device on the PATA cable. SATA will be a little faster due to lower transfer latency, but this impact will be overshadowed by the mechanical limits of the drive (the seek times) and thus the performance difference will be low. Note that some SATA models have totally different controller chips and as such cannot be directly compared (then you are not testing SATA versus PATA!).

Serial ATA does not really add to performance, but it does add to convenience (no jumpers with new drives), thermal management (small cables) and hot-plug functionality. Also it enables you to use NCQ should your usage benefit from that (desktop users leave it off!).

Hope this helps.

Take control of the input and you shall become master of the output.

Posted on 14 February 2008 @ 06:59

Ziddey: those are pretty good scores for an AAK drive, others are getting only 55MB/s. What controller are you using?

Take control of the input and you shall become master of the output.

Posted on 15 February 2008 @ 16:24

edited 16:51

I stumbled upon this thread while searching for similar complaints to mine concerning the poor performance of my ST3500630AS drive, compared to the WD1200JB's it replaced. No benchmarks, just real-world, day to day tasks. Sure enough, it has the AAK firmware.

I switched to Seagate after many years of using WD drives because of the 5 yr. warranty and reputation for being fast. I guess the acquisition of Maxtor changed everything. Reading the customer reviews at NewEgg, the impression is that many of these drives are dying, or at least getting very noisy in a short period of time; so much for quality.

Has anyone else lately noticed that their retail drive's numbers don't match what the box says. I bought one from BB three months ago marked ST3500641AS and 9BD648-550 on the box, but the drive inside says ST3500630AS and 9BJ146-308. Luckily it qualifies for the AAM firmware upgrade(a Thailand drive by the way).

Wanting to do another Raid 0 setup, I bought a second drive at OM last night. I had the choice of one manufactured in Thailand or in China. They were marked as ST3500641AS models, as my first one was, so I figured it was probably a 630 also. I had to choose between the last three in the PN of 550 or 557. I ended up going for the 550(from China this time, go figure), so that I would most likely have a matched pair. Well the drive is indeed a 630 model but most interestingly is that the PN is 305 and the firmware is AAE.

In short, Seagate is messed up, I'm confused, and it doesn't seem to matter much where the drive was manufactured.

Posted on 17 February 2008 @ 02:00

I will try to run some tests, including IO meter that you mentioned, comparing AAE to AAM.

Posted on 20 February 2008 @ 20:40

I think the aak drives are louder. I don't have a reference though but my .10 aak is way louder than my wd ks or ys drives. By a mile.

If you can still return, why not just get .11's?

Posted on 27 February 2008 @ 16:11

edited 16:16

Ziddey, your hyperlink is broken.

Hmm, mine was too. It truncates the last part.
Anyway, the discussion is found in the "general hardware" section of their forums.
www.xtremesystems.org/forums

If Jeeka is legit, Seagate sent him a beta 3.AAM firmware for the 320GB model. He posted benchmarks that show a marked improvement over 3.AAK I registered on the site to ask him for a copy. I also sent a request to Seagate's tech support. I hope this happens, I have 3 320GB drives with 3.AAK.

Posted on 28 February 2008 @ 04:30

edited 17:32

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?p=2802748

copy paste. the aam firmware was posted by jeeka

Edit by Enlightenment: i fixed a bug which makes your link clickable.

Posted on 8 March 2008 @ 10:09

i thought it wont work in 320Gb drives.......
did u create backup b4 flashing it?

Posted on 14 April 2008 @ 20:48

skystrikerx wrote: I have uploaded the updated 3.AAM firmware below:
http://www.mediafire.com/?30ddatf19xs

The update will ONLY work with drives that have a P/N that end in 308!
(Example: 9BJ146-308)

Hi, has somebody the original 3.AAK firmware I need those, Please