need help determining sata300 performance benefits

Matt26 · 02-12-2009, 12:10 PM

i have just purchased a seagate barracuda SATA300Gb/s 7200RPM 500GB hard drive for my gaming PC, hoping to increase the overall performance of my PC for playing mainstream games.

i have read that SATA300 doesn't really offer any real-world benefits over SATA150- is this true? if so, are there any real performance differences?

i have also read that using NCQ can help to improve a SATA300 HD's performance- is this accurate? if so, is there a noticeable performance difference if NCQ is enabled?

i believe my motherboard (Asus A8N-SLI Premium) supports NCQ so i should be able to use it.

any help would be greatly appreciated.

thanks.

**raptor_pa** · 02-12-2009, 02:23 PM

NCQ often has some performance increases, but it's not a gurantee. It reduces track to track seeks, but may or may not produce an increase in performance the way you expect. As far as sata1 vs sata2 again everyone's mileage will vary. Any performance measurement will always show the slowest element. The 150 vs 300 spped is the calculated maximum transfer from teh HD to the bus. The slowest operation of a drive is not transferring, but in the track to track seek times. In all likelihood you will see some improvement, but the speed will probably not be close to double, the track to track times are not all that different. In shor, all these technologies deal with a theoretical best case, or measure only one element of the components performance.
As they say with est. mileage on cars... "Your mileage may vary"

Matt26 · 02-13-2009, 05:26 AM

thanks for the response,

so between the options of (1) using Raid 0 with 2 SATA300 hard drives, and (2) enabling NCQ to be used with a single SATA300 drive- which is the better option in terms of real-world performance?

**raptor_pa** · 02-13-2009, 07:48 AM

There are no absolutes. Raid 0 is not your friend if you want to keep your data intact, unlesss you back up REGULARLY. I would tend to use two independent disks with NCQ, but don't expect to see noticeable speed improvements, maybe some, but this alone will not turn a machine into a ball of fire. Still limited by slowest bottleneck in the system.

02-12-2009, 12:10 PM	#1 (permalink)
Matt26 Registered User Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 7 OS: Linux Ubuntu 8.04	need help determining sata300 performance benefits i have just purchased a seagate barracuda SATA300Gb/s 7200RPM 500GB hard drive for my gaming PC, hoping to increase the overall performance of my PC for playing mainstream games. i have read that SATA300 doesn't really offer any real-world benefits over SATA150- is this true? if so, are there any real performance differences? i have also read that using NCQ can help to improve a SATA300 HD's performance- is this accurate? if so, is there a noticeable performance difference if NCQ is enabled? i believe my motherboard (Asus A8N-SLI Premium) supports NCQ so i should be able to use it. any help would be greatly appreciated. thanks.

02-12-2009, 02:23 PM	#2 (permalink)
raptor_pa Mod Hardware Team Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Central PA Posts: 4,788 OS: XP	Re: need help determining sata300 performance benefits NCQ often has some performance increases, but it's not a gurantee. It reduces track to track seeks, but may or may not produce an increase in performance the way you expect. As far as sata1 vs sata2 again everyone's mileage will vary. Any performance measurement will always show the slowest element. The 150 vs 300 spped is the calculated maximum transfer from teh HD to the bus. The slowest operation of a drive is not transferring, but in the track to track seek times. In all likelihood you will see some improvement, but the speed will probably not be close to double, the track to track times are not all that different. In shor, all these technologies deal with a theoretical best case, or measure only one element of the components performance. As they say with est. mileage on cars... "Your mileage may vary" __________________

02-13-2009, 05:26 AM	#3 (permalink)
Matt26 Registered User Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 7 OS: Linux Ubuntu 8.04	Re: need help determining sata300 performance benefits thanks for the response, so between the options of (1) using Raid 0 with 2 SATA300 hard drives, and (2) enabling NCQ to be used with a single SATA300 drive- which is the better option in terms of real-world performance?

02-13-2009, 07:48 AM	#4 (permalink)
raptor_pa Mod Hardware Team Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Central PA Posts: 4,788 OS: XP	Re: need help determining sata300 performance benefits There are no absolutes. Raid 0 is not your friend if you want to keep your data intact, unlesss you back up REGULARLY. I would tend to use two independent disks with NCQ, but don't expect to see noticeable speed improvements, maybe some, but this alone will not turn a machine into a ball of fire. Still limited by slowest bottleneck in the system. __________________