New HDD
Results 1 to 4 of 4

Thread: New HDD

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Mar 2001
    Location
    East Horsley, Surrey, UK
    Posts
    2,352

    New HDD

    Hi there,

    I have a Dell Dimension 9200 with an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.40GHz and XP Pro. X years ago, I needed to add a third HDD so bought a 1tb SATA 2, with 64mb. When I installed it, it was so slow as to be almost useless. I posted a thread and was advised to change it for a 32mb and that works just fine.

    As I have a lot of large mb photos, I now need to look at another HDD but everything seems to be SATA3/64mb, which will probably not run on my SATA2 based computer. Or will it?

    I assume that SATA3 is backward compatible but what about the 32 v 64?

    Thanks

    Rex
    What if the Hokey Cokey IS what it's all about?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
    Location
    Maryland, USA
    Posts
    17,806
    Everything's compatible, SATA and cache size.

    SATA revision 1.0 is 1.5 Gbit/s (150 MB/s), SATA revision 2.0 is 3 Gbit/s (300 MB/s) and SATA revision 3.0 is 6 Gbit/s (600 MB/s). All are backward and forward compatible.

    --

    When you see something like "SATA 6.0Gb/s 7200 RPM 64MB Cache" in hard drive specifications, that trailing "64MB Cache" means the hard drive has 64MB (MegaBytes) of built-in RAM (Random Access Memory) to use as a cache. And since the hard drive uses this cache to store copies of data from frequently used disk sectors so it can be read without having to access the slow disk platter(s), bigger is better.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2000
    Location
    Idaho Falls, Idaho, USA
    Posts
    18,063
    The slowness of your previous drive may have been at least partly due to the default sector size. The hard drive manufacturer may have a utility to optimize the drive for your XP system.

    Links:

    http://arstechnica.com/information-t...-for-xp-users/

    http://www.google.com/#hl=en&sclient...23&safe=active

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jul 2000
    Posts
    4,765
    Quote Originally Posted by Rex A. Butcher
    ... X years ago, I needed to add a third HDD so bought a 1tb SATA 2, with 64mb. When I installed it, it was so slow as to be almost useless...
    More information on Advanced Format.

    As already pointed out by jdc2000,
    When selecting a new HDD,
    Find out whether it requires utility to be used prior to use.
    Cheers.

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •