sata hard drive-is it working properly?

Larrycleve · 08-25-2007, 08:21 AM

I built a new system with a evga 650i mobo, core 2 duo, 2 gig ram, and wd sata drive. This is with xp home. When testing the drive speed in device manager under sata controller with all boxes checked, it shows 94 mg burst speed and 79 mg sustained speed. It says theoretical speed 300 mg. Are these speeds correct? If they're too slow how do I correct this? These are the same whether windows or the bios determines the speed. The system takes 40 seconds to boot to desktop. Is this correct or slow?

blackduck30 · 08-25-2007, 04:28 PM

Have a look here and you will get a comparison and an idea of what other setups are getting in terms of speed

HD Tach Scores

butterfly77049 · 08-26-2007, 05:20 AM

40 seconds, thats pretty good boot speed. If you are worry about boot times, the best way to speed up the system is to not shut it down every time, but use stand by (cheap fix).

As far as theorectical speeds go, that depends on whether the motherboard you have supports the latest SATA specs which can only be found in your motherboard manual?

The latest hard drives are capable of enhanced mode if your motherboard supports it, and I believe the methods they use to enable it vary by manufacturer, it could be a jumper or bios setting. They've got warnings that changing the settings can result in data loss or worse, so if it is working now, be careful if you change anything.

The large drives are pretty fast, they have to be, or no one would buy them. If your motherboard does not support the latest specs, then you know what to look for next time you buy.

Also synthetic benchmarks are not always realistic. Depends on what you do with it, if you are copying data from CD, or DVD, speed is that of DVD player, the slowest component.

08-25-2007, 08:21 AM	#1 (permalink)
Larrycleve Registered User Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 67 OS: winxp	sata hard drive-is it working properly? I built a new system with a evga 650i mobo, core 2 duo, 2 gig ram, and wd sata drive. This is with xp home. When testing the drive speed in device manager under sata controller with all boxes checked, it shows 94 mg burst speed and 79 mg sustained speed. It says theoretical speed 300 mg. Are these speeds correct? If they're too slow how do I correct this? These are the same whether windows or the bios determines the speed. The system takes 40 seconds to boot to desktop. Is this correct or slow?

08-25-2007, 04:28 PM	#2 (permalink)
blackduck30 Registered User Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Wollongong/Australia Posts: 4,230 OS: XP pro SP3/Vista Ultimate My System	Re: sata hard drive-is it working properly? Have a look here and you will get a comparison and an idea of what other setups are getting in terms of speed HD Tach Scores __________________ Blackduck30 Time is like money and milk, It's always running out Any Donations Help Keep TSF Free For All

08-26-2007, 05:20 AM	#3 (permalink)
butterfly77049 Registered User Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 18 OS: Windows	Re: sata hard drive-is it working properly? 40 seconds, thats pretty good boot speed. If you are worry about boot times, the best way to speed up the system is to not shut it down every time, but use stand by (cheap fix). As far as theorectical speeds go, that depends on whether the motherboard you have supports the latest SATA specs which can only be found in your motherboard manual? The latest hard drives are capable of enhanced mode if your motherboard supports it, and I believe the methods they use to enable it vary by manufacturer, it could be a jumper or bios setting. They've got warnings that changing the settings can result in data loss or worse, so if it is working now, be careful if you change anything. The large drives are pretty fast, they have to be, or no one would buy them. If your motherboard does not support the latest specs, then you know what to look for next time you buy. Also synthetic benchmarks are not always realistic. Depends on what you do with it, if you are copying data from CD, or DVD, speed is that of DVD player, the slowest component.