SATA vs IDE

[Agent]

Np Agent - I've just mailed my techy contacts @ Taiwan to see which BIOS revision the NCQ support was included in and to why this is not noted on their website at all. As soon as I have any feedback I'll let you know mate

Cool cool, cheers bud
I wish the manufacturers would keep proper changelogs (and proper websites for that matter )

iirc the NF7-S v2 uses the 3112a sa chipset not the 3114 Agent.

Yup, your correct matey

[Vimeous]

And to add to the other point. NCQ actually slows down the 74gig WD Raptor. Don't get sucked in by manufacturers hype. Wait for cold, hard, impartial empirical data befor making assumptions.

Not sure if this was aimed at me or not but if so I didn't mean to draw a direct connection between NCQ's benefits and the 74Gb Raptor. However even though I've not seen the data I'd expect an NCQ Raptor to over emphasise both the advantages AND disadvantages NCQ brings.
In linear data use the additional NCQ process is effectively unneeded but still performed. With a Raptor that would slow its data access just as with any other drive, the difference being amplified by the expected additional speed of the drive.
However when the NCQ process is reordering disc access as data from across the disk is requested in random order I'd expect the same gains you'd get over a non-Raptor NCQ'd disk.
Basically it depends how you use your disk as to whether you'll see an advantage.

Wam7 I for one would like to see the data you refer to as I'm always keen to understand what makes the most difference to general performance and why. Got any links we can refer too?

[Steve]

When you have three/four disk raid you appreciate the cabling that SATA brings. Don't use rounded IDE cables as an excuse... SATA are far superior in that sense.

As for performance... I'm not going to get into that as hard drives are disappointing unless they're SCSI.

[Apex]

Cool cool, cheers bud
I wish the manufacturers would keep proper changelogs (and proper websites for that matter )




Yup, your correct matey

Only reason i know this is cos the add in sata raid card i have for my shuttle is a based on the same 3112a chipset and so when i went from the NF7-S to this shuttle the sata worked right out of the box

The one thing i will say for a lot of sata cards and chipsets is that bios updating is a must. When i first got this card it must have been on the first version of the 3112a bios it was slow and caused problems, update to the lastone on the si webby and bobs ya uncel this machine feels like a whole new machine

To me the investment i made in the card and hdd where worth it, before when loading maps it would make the machine crawl now it zips along

[Agent]

I agree. BIOS updating that ive done on RAID cards has usualy made a noticable difference.
Although i swore never to use another SI chip after owning a RocketRAID. The Si was always lagging, and just generaly being a PITA. The new RocketRAID i brought made a huge difference !

*Waits for backup from Jo*