A typical SATA/PATA (non WD Raptor) HD today should be at least 25-35MB/sec.
Either your calculations are incorrect, or something else is going on there.
You might want to check out Hd Tach 3 (
http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public...request=HdTach ) and make
sure things are working normally.

Jim


"David G" <david_g99352@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:OhwJOr77FHA.3752@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
My Dell 8400 came with a SATA HD, and I installed a second parallel ATA HD
to use for data backup. I am experiencing data xfer rates from the SATA
drive to the backup of around 1.5 - 1.6 MB/sec. Does this seem right?
Seems slow to me. Is there something I can do to speed up the xfer rate?

TIA
David