Jeff Key

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SATA == Super-Awesome Technology. Amen!

After hearing about SATA's Superior performance, as well as the availability of a 10,000 RPM drive, I took the plunge.  I'm not one to jump onto the latest technology; actually, I'm far from it.  I like to let things settle down, find out what sticks and what doesn't, then confidently drop my hard-earned dollars.  This uncharacteristic move was due in large part to Longhorn and it's current state of hardcore I/O utilization.

Verdict:  I'm glad I did.

I noticed the speed increase during a fresh XP installation.  At the point setup claims “39 minutes remaining” we know we're usually in for a 40-45 minute wait.  I jotted down the time, hoping for a pleasant surprise.  As I watched the numbers tick down far too quickly, I knew things were going to be good.  Eleven minutes after the “39 minutes remaining” mark I was at a clean Windows XP desktop.  Happiness!

To confirm what I've seen, I ran a couple simple benchmarks comparing my last system drive, an ATA100 7,200RPM drive.  Here are the results:

Linear read:  50% faster
Random read:  42% faster
Access time:  35% faster

Posted: Nov 22 2003, 07:00 PM by jeffreykey | with 10 comment(s)
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Comments

Phil Scott said:

How the noise level on that sucker. I was thinking of picking a couple of them up and run them in RAID, but I was afraid the thing would sound like an air plane taking off.
# November 22, 2003 8:08 PM

Jeff Key said:

It's not at all noticeable. Every once in a while I'll hear something, but it's no louder than the 7,200 ATA drive. I can't recommend it enough!
# November 22, 2003 8:14 PM

M. Keith Warren said:

I am striping two WD SATA Raptors; best upgrade I have ever done!
# November 22, 2003 10:18 PM

Michael Campbell said:

Now if we could only get these pigs in laptops! :D Glad to see these numbers... and the best number of all is the 11 minutes for an install of XP (now that's a number I can instantly relate to).
# November 22, 2003 10:55 PM

Steven Smith said:

I'm with Michael - I want one for my laptop. Although I might want it to be able to run slower when I'm on batteries, since I think it must certainly be a power hog... Arg, the constant conflict between mobility and RAW POWER...
# November 23, 2003 3:13 AM

Jeff Key said:

A guy I work with recently got a 7,200 RPM drive for his ThinkPad. Not too shabby; I didn't know they broke the 5,400 barrier..
# November 23, 2003 3:45 AM

Frans Bouma said:

Don't forget the larger cache (probably 8MB vs the 2MB on your older drive) and 33% higher rotation speed which are likely the cause of the higher overall speed you got with the SATA drive. (and they can handle more throughput, but don't forget: an ATA100 drive can theoretically have a throughput of 100MB/sec, but will average on 30, 33MB / sec max.)
# November 23, 2003 5:59 AM

greg said:

I've got s-ata, too. But how to install longhorn onto it? I couldn't succeed. Any tips?
# November 23, 2003 4:17 PM

Jeff Key said:

Greg: Don't know about that one. I've decided to stick with Longhorn in a VPC until the beta, so I haven't tried.
# November 23, 2003 6:03 PM

TrackBack said:

# January 24, 2005 9:10 PM