How can SATA HDD improve performance in Z71V? - Page 3

The file system benchmark in Sandra on my SATA drive give me about 30mb/s with or without the DVD rom in the bay. Can somebody do this with a PATA drive to confirm if there is actually performance hit? And whether having separate channels with a SATA really helps.

i ran the benchmark 4 times
i got 27mb/s 2 times with nothing running, (nth in optical drive)
and also my next 2 times
i was running a VCD while i did the benchmark
and 27mb/s again =o

i have screenshots but hmm they all look da same

So basically, we lose 3mb/s with pata? I would only assume that the 3mb/s is the diff between the sata and pata would be the drives themselves and not the fact that the pata is on an ide with cd-rom. Soooo, guess that means there is no performance hit by having the cd-rom and hd on the same ide.

Woot! And I was getting worried there

One thing I've yet to see confirmed is does this laptop really support SATA.

Yes, there is an adapter for you to connect the SATA drive into the notebook, but is it a PATA to SATA, vice versa, adapter or is it true SATA utilization and not just support.

Doesn't access only slow down when the slower drive is in use? So you'd only notice it when doing HD to DVD transfers?

If you have a dedicated SATA port it should show up in device manager. I have a translator in a desktop system and all I see in device manager are my PATA channels even if I use it and plug into them.

That is what I've been pondering about. My desktop does the exact same thing. However, on this laptop I don't see the SATA controller showing up. I was not sure if it is because I don't have a SATA attached at the moment.

What shows up currently is the Ultra ATA controller.

ya i know i've seen ppl having optical drive/hd on diff IDE channels.. but afterall..they are showed as IDE channels.. doesn't tell me 1 is on SATA and other is on PATA

Having been one of the first to call out the Z71V on this, I have to interject a few things.

First off, not all Sonoma based notebooks are limited to one IDE channel. I know this, because I am working on an Asus W3V which has 2. This system also *allegedly* supports SATA natively with the proper hard drive adapter, which has yet to be made available. The option to use 2 IDE channels and avoid this mess was obviously there... Asus just didn't implement it. Point blank, there it is.

If you prefer to just question the chipset instead of relinquishing your Asus fanboy status, lemme ask you a question: Isn't it possible that support for a 2nd IDE could've been added back in AFTER the spec sheet was initially released? If you remember, there was quite a delay in getting the chipset ready to be rolled out. Take that as you will.

Also, simply running a transfer rate benchmark isn't going to accurately show the performance impact of having both devices on the same channel. I/O performance is what takes the biggest hit... not the transfer rate. That is why people have problems with disc burning and dvd playback.

Kai

I look at the W3V and you are right, there was two IDE channels show in the BIOS. I wonder what other laptop having two IDE channels.

I wonder if they end up creating a IDE/SATA bridge. Thus technically it is 1 IDE and 2 SATA. Where one of the SATA is a bridge to create the second IDE, but if used 2 IDE you will have one SATA?

I recall Asus did it back in the days for the desktop board with the PCI port when it was first released. They did the PCI/ISA bridge on one of them. Thus allow you to either use one extra ISA or lose that ISA and have one extra PCI.

Are there Z71V owners out there who are experiencing problems playing DVD's on their notebooks? As someone considering buying one, I'd like to know as the quality of DVD playback is very important to me (I'd like to use the notebook for driving my CRT projector in my home theater as one of it's uses).

Hmm, but my desktop has SATA and PATA and I have different things in device manager (intel motherboard)... I don't know how it all works on these. Need to look at the chipset docs sometime.

In the device manager, even though I see my HDD and DVD rom on different channels, I see the 'Intel 82801FBM ULtra ATA storage Controller - 2653'??? And I don't see a separate 'SATA' controller listed. Does that mean even though drives may be on separate channels, my SATA is basically working like any other drive?..i.e. there's no advantage of having a SATA drive (besides having separate channels) if you don't have a SATA controller??? The intel website only has the 'RAID' accelarator for desktop SATA and non for mobile platform...is it just a matter of waiting to get a driver/controller for SATA on notebooks? I'm so confused!!!

That's what I was trying to figure out when I E-Mailed ISTNC. According to them, the adapters that come with the laptop convert PATA or SATA to a different plug for the laptop.. That doesn't really answer whether it's simply a PATA plug though. So, do both PATA and SATA require an adapter (that's what it sounds like in the E-Mail I got), but I havn't really read anyone saying the PATA also uses an adapter... When are you going to do your experiments, GamingTechy?

Classically, if there are two drives on the same IDE channel, then they would only transfer data as fast as the slowest drive, though that was years ago. Things may have changed and the bus controller may be able to switch speeds and stuff.. I really don't know. Also, I wouldn't think that simply having a CD-ROM present would affect a benchmark unless it is transferring data during the benchmark.. but I can't really think of a good way to get accurate benchmarks with that either except watching a DVD while benchmarking, which 1Cent did (with a VCD).

I guess it really just comes down to is does it really have SATA implemented or not? The E-Mail I got from ISTNC suggests that it could be a different channel altogether (not really PATA or SATA) but that either type is converted to this "universal" channel. Which could explain why it isn't showing up under an SATA group.. But if it is a "universal" channel, does it give any of the benefits that SATA does over PATA?

Anyone know when the new SATA Hitachi Travelstars or Seagate Momentus come out?