Andrew E. wrote:

> All IDE drives should run at 100MB/s,maxtors with the right controller run at
> 133MB/s,SATA 150MB/s ,SCSI 320MB/s.If you run much lower(1.5-1.6) then
> update youre drivers for the controller.
>
>"David G" wrote:
>
>
>
>>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
>>
>>
Those data rates are a bit misleading, since they are for the bus, not for
HDs on the bus. On this PC, for example, here are some rates for the Boot
HD measured with HDtach:

- Bus data rate = 150 MB/s (SATA-150)
- Peak read rate = 120 MB/s (HD buffer to PC RAM)
- STR outer band = 72 MB/s (STR = Sustained Transfer Rate)
- STR inner band = 53 MB/s
- STR average = 65 MB/s

And some rates to copy a 1 GB file using drag'n'drop under XP:

- Boot HD to Data HD = 53 MB/s (the Data HD is a slower SATA HD)
- Data HD to Boot HD = 45 MB/s (asymmetric rates are common)
- Boot HD to Boot HD = 22 MB/s (note the cost of seeks)

--
Cheers, Bob