Why no PCs w/SATA-600 yet?
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From: Timothy Daniels on 20 Jul 2010 17:54 SATA-600 hard drives are now on the market, as are PCIE adapter cards for them. Even Gigabyte has a motherboard with onboard SATA-600. I'm itching to buy a new desktop PC with that feature, but no PCs have it, yet, including Dell. Does anyone here have any insight as to why? Or have you heard when it might become available as an onboard feature? *TimDaniels*
From: Christopher Muto on 20 Jul 2010 18:47 Timothy Daniels wrote: > SATA-600 hard drives are now on the market, as are > PCIE adapter cards for them. Even Gigabyte has a > motherboard with onboard SATA-600. I'm itching to > buy a new desktop PC with that feature, but no PCs > have it, yet, including Dell. Does anyone here have any > insight as to why? Or have you heard when it might > become available as an onboard feature? > > *TimDaniels* > > i think the answer is that sata and certainly sata ii is still faster than what conventional hard disks can deliver. the new sata 600 (or sata 3) appears to be only useful for sold state drives which are still relatively expensive and not available in very large drive sizes.
From: Timothy Daniels on 20 Jul 2010 22:23 "Christopher Muto" responded: > Timothy Daniels wrote: >> SATA-600 hard drives are now on the market, as are >> PCIE adapter cards for them. Even Gigabyte has a >> motherboard with onboard SATA-600. I'm itching to >> buy a new desktop PC with that feature, but no PCs >> have it, yet, including Dell. Does anyone here have any >> insight as to why? Or have you heard when it might >> become available as an onboard feature? >> >> *TimDaniels* > > i think the answer is that sata and certainly sata ii is still faster than what conventional hard disks can deliver. > the new sata 600 (or sata 3) appears to be only useful for sold state drives which are still relatively expensive and > not available in very large drive sizes. The July PCWorld (one issue ago) did a review of WD's Velociraptor (a SATA-600 HD with 10,000 rpm rotational speed), and they compared it with a WD SATA-300 Caviar Green (rotational speed somewhere between 5,400 and 7,200 rpm) in file and folder read-write tests, and they said it had a "dramatic performance edge of 8 to 17 seconds". How that is limited by "what conventional hard disks can deliver", I don't know, but Google reveals that several adapter card manufacturers feel that there will be a market for people upgrading to SATA-600, and GigaByte feels that there will be a market for a motherboard with SATA-600 onboard. With increased areal densities and cache sizes, the actual bus speeds may become significant and total throughput less limited by seek time delays. The bottom line is that there will be guys like me who want SATA-600, and why aren't there PCs available with it built-in? *TimDaniels*
From: Ben Myers on 21 Jul 2010 01:15 On 7/20/2010 10:23 PM, Timothy Daniels wrote: > "Christopher Muto" responded: >> Timothy Daniels wrote: >>> SATA-600 hard drives are now on the market, as are >>> PCIE adapter cards for them. Even Gigabyte has a >>> motherboard with onboard SATA-600. I'm itching to >>> buy a new desktop PC with that feature, but no PCs >>> have it, yet, including Dell. Does anyone here have any >>> insight as to why? Or have you heard when it might >>> become available as an onboard feature? >>> >>> *TimDaniels* >> >> i think the answer is that sata and certainly sata ii is still faster than what conventional hard disks can deliver. >> the new sata 600 (or sata 3) appears to be only useful for sold state drives which are still relatively expensive and >> not available in very large drive sizes. > > The July PCWorld (one issue ago) did a review of WD's Velociraptor > (a SATA-600 HD with 10,000 rpm rotational speed), and they compared > it with a WD SATA-300 Caviar Green (rotational speed somewhere > between 5,400 and 7,200 rpm) in file and folder read-write tests, and they > said it had a "dramatic performance edge of 8 to 17 seconds". How that > is limited by "what conventional hard disks can deliver", I don't know, but > Google reveals that several adapter card manufacturers feel that there will > be a market for people upgrading to SATA-600, and GigaByte feels that > there will be a market for a motherboard with SATA-600 onboard. With > increased areal densities and cache sizes, the actual bus speeds may become > significant and total throughput less limited by seek time delays. The bottom > line is that there will be guys like me who want SATA-600, and why aren't > there PCs available with it built-in? > > *TimDaniels* > > A disk drive subsystem has three possible bottlenecks: 1. the speed of the channel to memory. 2. the rotational speed of the hard drive. 3. the recording density in terms of sectors per track. 4. seek time. PC World has done a disservice with an apples-and-oranges comparison between a slow SATA-300 drive and a fast SATA-600 drive. But then, computer journalism and product testing have gone way downhill since the '90s when I was involved with it at PCWorld's Ziff-Davis competitors. The drives tested have very different specs. Of course (!!!), the 10000 RPM drive would be faster. To see the difference between SATA-600 and SATA-300, do some tests with the SAME drive connected to SATA2 and SATA3 controllers. But, of course, WD and the manufacturers of SATA3 controllers do not want tests done that way. They want tests that show how much better SATA-3 is, and PC World is dumb enough to go along with the idea. Or maybe it has to do with ad pages, something that the computer journalism world even during the last century denied. But, yeah, ad pages do influence the written editorial word. The market for SATA-600 upgrades will be about the same as the one for 802.11n. For 99% of the wifi things people do today, 802.11n makes no difference in speed compared to 802.11g. But people always want to have the latest, whether it makes good economic and technical sense or not. To better understand what Christopher is saying, get the specs for the drives in question and compute with a spreadsheet the maximum transfer rates for the drives. Then compare this transfer rates with the rated speeds of SATA-300 and SATA-600. You should find that the drives cannot physically feed data fast enough to utilize the bandwidth of the data channel, even assuming a zero seek time. I did these sorts of computations long ago, but gave up when I realized that the difference between a faster and a slower drive on my productivity was small. Most drives today are fast enough, except if you are doing work that has a serious dependency on the speed of the drive (like video or audio production)... Ben Myers
From: Timothy Daniels on 21 Jul 2010 01:42
"Ben Myers" wrote in part > On 7/20/2010 10:23 PM, Timothy Daniels wrote: >> "Christopher Muto" responded: >>> Timothy Daniels wrote: >>>> SATA-600 hard drives are now on the market, as are >>>> PCIE adapter cards for them. Even Gigabyte has a >>>> motherboard with onboard SATA-600. I'm itching to >>>> buy a new desktop PC with that feature, but no PCs >>>> have it, yet, including Dell. Does anyone here have any >>>> insight as to why? Or have you heard when it might >>>> become available as an onboard feature? >>>> >>>> *TimDaniels* >>> >>> i think the answer is that sata and certainly sata ii is still faster than what conventional hard disks can >>> deliver. >>> the new sata 600 (or sata 3) appears to be only useful for sold state drives which are still relatively expensive >>> and >>> not available in very large drive sizes. >> >> The July PCWorld (one issue ago) did a review of WD's Velociraptor >> (a SATA-600 HD with 10,000 rpm rotational speed), and they compared >> it with a WD SATA-300 Caviar Green (rotational speed somewhere >> between 5,400 and 7,200 rpm) in file and folder read-write tests, and they >> said it had a "dramatic performance edge of 8 to 17 seconds". How that >> is limited by "what conventional hard disks can deliver", I don't know, but >> Google reveals that several adapter card manufacturers feel that there will >> be a market for people upgrading to SATA-600, and GigaByte feels that >> there will be a market for a motherboard with SATA-600 onboard. With >> increased areal densities and cache sizes, the actual bus speeds may become >> significant and total throughput less limited by seek time delays. The bottom >> line is that there will be guys like me who want SATA-600, and why aren't >> there PCs available with it built-in? >> >> *TimDaniels* >> > ....But people always want to have the latest, whether it makes good economic and technical sense or not. > > ....Most drives today are fast enough, except if you are doing work that > has a serious dependency on the speed of the drive (like video or audio production)... Ben Myers OK, maybe I and lots of other people are gullible. Why aren't the PC makers making us something we'd buy? And, OK, there are lots of people, both amateurs and pros who do video and audio production, and their numbers are burgeoning. Why aren't the PC makers making us something we'd buy? Hmmm... I also read that Intel is expected to introduce chips for SATA-600 and USB-3 early next year. Maybe THAT's what the PC makers are waiting for - the other shoe to drop. *TimDaniels* |