Those with the Maxtor 120GB SATA

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23-09-2003, 10:42 PM
ronny

Those with the Maxtor 120GB SATA

What are your thoughts on this drive?

To be honest, I was expecting more from this drive after reading mostly good things about it. I am a little dissapointed with it. It is in fact pretty noisy, even compared to my older Maxtor D740X 60GB. It is hot, as in pretty damn hot. There are niggling issues like MP3s skipping or clicking slightly sometimes, although not too noticeable, when the HD is being accessed hard. And also, the copying issue where it stops every second and the PC slows down to a grinding halt when moving files onto the drive. The last two may well be driver issues but after spending the extra to get the SATA version, I was expecting hassle-free good performance. I am now wishing I chose to stick with PATA IDE right now.

This is with a NF7-S and the latest Si 10032 drivers.

Why can't it just be nice like I was expecting it to :(
23-09-2003, 10:47 PM
TeePee

I have two of these in RAID 0. The seek noise is pretty bad, but thats the only fault I have with it. No skipping or clipping or problams when moving files. I do have them in a different configuration though.
23-09-2003, 10:55 PM
SilentDeath

please correct me if im wrong, but the maxtor dmp+9 sata drives are exacly the same as the pata/pata+built in converter ones but with the sata interface instead of the pata + converter interface that the earyer drives used.
my 120gb pata dmp9 is very nice, and quiet tbh.
is ur d740x a FDB drive or ball bearing drive? this makes a HUUUUGE difference to heat/niose output (only the whine noise, not seeks)

i use the 10028 drivers, never had a prob. im using this drive on a seriiell converter atm, and have a non-fdb d740x on pata pri ide for boot drive.
23-09-2003, 11:00 PM
ronny

Cheers for the quick replies.

I think I have the FDB version of the D740X. It is quiter though than my 120GB. I would assume that the PATA version is the same as the SATA just different interface. I wouldn't call the drive quiet though. I guess it depends on how noisey the rest of ur PC is. The seek noise is nasty though really.

I might try the .28 drivers. I am beginning to wish though that I hadn't bought it or at least got the PATA version.

What I might do is have my PATA maxtor as the boot drive... hmmm there's an idea. Even if does mean re-formatting and doing the whole XP thing AGAIN.

Keep the views coming.
23-09-2003, 11:11 PM
Austin

Quote:

Originally posted by |SilentDeath|
please correct me if im wrong, but the maxtor dmp+9 sata drives are exacly the same as the pata/pata+built in converter ones but with the sata interface instead of the pata + converter interface that the earyer drives used.

;) That was what Seagate did but Maxtor enhanced their HD making the SATA version superior to the equivilent ATA133 HD, certainly from the reviews I've read. SATA's 150MB/s is obviously pointless but it does have other merits most notably low CPU usage.

:cool: Rem SATA is new technology and as such it will be prone to more problems and drawbacks, that along with price is what you should expect whether it's the latest HD, CPU, mobo or gfx card.

:( I have to agree that my NF7_S v2.0 coupled with a SATA 120GB Maxtor (7200-8 obviously) seems to give disappointing perf in Sandra at least. It is a little noisy (I'm very fussy) but far less than WD that's for sure. Biggest problem I see is not being able to use Maxtor's Acoustic Management sw as it only works on PATA not SATA. I used that as I found my previous 120GB ATA133 7200-8 too loud at default settings. All modern Maxtor and Seagate use FDB, but there are other factors to noise emmision. As for heat, it seems to run easily as cool as any other 7200 HD, maybe cooler (at least in my case).

:confused: At the mo I'd have to say drivers are the biggest issue, it seems nF2's IDE implimentation leaves something to be desired ... I think nVidia care more about inflating the lowly GF-FX scores with drivers than sorting the nF2 which are considered the top SktA chipset regardless of any failings.

http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?threadid=3968
23-09-2003, 11:18 PM
ronny

Do you think I should hold on until Si or nVidia releases newer drivers? I am tempted to go back to my 60GB Maxtor PATA as my boot drive at the moment simply because it is quieter and does not have these niggling problems. That is unless the SATA still doesn't work quite as well as it should when I am using it as my 2nd HD.
24-09-2003, 12:31 AM
SilentDeath

teh driver problems shoudl be fixed now btw, check u got latest bios.

ALL DM9P drives (sata or pata) have FDB bearings iirc. maybe maxtor made the sata versions niosyer when tehy inc performance?. btw AM soft does sweet fa for my d740x i assume its the same for the dmp9's but the soft dont work on it (pata!)
24-09-2003, 12:49 AM
Agent

Make sure you have the latest BIOS if your using SATA and set teh delay time to 1ms (even if not using RAID)
24-09-2003, 11:53 AM
Austin

Quote:

Originally posted by Agent
Make sure you have the latest BIOS if your using SATA and set teh delay time to 1ms (even if not using RAID)

:confused: Abit seem a little unclear as to this setting in the BIOS...

Integrated Peripherals: EXT-P2P's Discard Time (1ms, 30us, 9.6us, 3.8us). "Set to 30us to fix Sil3112 SATA Controller will crush SATA HD"

:( Default is 30us.
24-09-2003, 12:22 PM
ronny

Yeah, I have the latest BIOS (18).

As Austin says, the BIOS recommends a time of 30us. I thought you only used 1ms if you were getting corruption??
24-09-2003, 01:27 PM
bmh.01

Well i've set mine to 1ms and haven't had any problems with my raid0 array.
24-09-2003, 01:32 PM
Agent

Quote:

Originally posted by Austin
:confused: Abit seem a little unclear as to this setting in the BIOS...

Integrated Peripherals: EXT-P2P's Discard Time (1ms, 30us, 9.6us, 3.8us). "Set to 30us to fix Sil3112 SATA Controller will crush SATA HD"

:( Default is 30us.

Im yet to see a person having it working on 30us - myself included.
24-09-2003, 01:53 PM
ronny

Quote:

Originally posted by Agent
Im yet to see a person having it working on 30us - myself included.

So what you're saying is I should have it set to 1ms?
24-09-2003, 09:40 PM
Austin

http://geeknewz.dk/print.php?id=3061

http://www.motherboardfaqs.com/article.php?8.255

"Fixed SATA RAID-0 data corruption issue by adding a new option "EXT-P2P's Discard Time" in "integrated Peripherals". The default setting is "30 us" ; which is recommended by NVidia. In case the problem is still there, try "1 ms" please. "

:confused: Hmmm ... is this about corruption or lack of speed though ...
24-09-2003, 09:49 PM
ronny

What do you mean?

I am not getting issues of corruption (yet! :) )

I did find however that I get 100% CPU usage when I try copying large file(s) from my PATA to my SATA. I also get intermitent 100% usage (every other second basically) when copying from the SATA to PATA. The latter also causes my PC to stop responding every other second basically until the file is copied.

Anyone else gettig this? Can you try and see what you get?

Cheers

EDIT:

I have finally managed to fix the problem!! :D

I found that my PATA drive was stuck on PIO mode. It wouldn't switch over to DMA mode. So, after some research I found out that I should try uninstalling the IDE controller in Device Manager on which my PATA drive was situated. I did this and it re-installed on reboot to give me UDMA-5!

All copying problems and MP3s problems are now fixed!

So, in fact it was my problems concerning my PATA drive, not my SATA drive. Before I was getting 3,000 kb/s on SiSoft Sandra when on PIO mode and now I get 24,150 kb/s! A big difference.