Turning on Sata 2 for the Deskstar T7K250

ben_j_davis · 31 Mar 2006 at 20:18

I have a 160 GB Hitachi Deskstar T7K250, apparently i have to activate the sata 2 mode myself, anyone have any ideas how i do that?

Alexrose1uk · 31 Mar 2006 at 21:42

You download the feature tool of the hitachi site, install it on a floppy disc, boot the computer off it with all other drives disabled in bios temporarily, use the program, restart pc, reenabling all other drives, walla.

tomos · 1 Apr 2006 at 14:19

any benefits of this tho? i thought it can lower performance for the average user. i am wondering if it would help in a raid situation tho

Mikey1280 · 1 Apr 2006 at 15:18

It helps a bit, my average read went up by 3mbps and the burst goes up dramatically from about 120 to 220.

tomos · 1 Apr 2006 at 15:54

ah, that's different. may give it a go in that case

jbloggs · 1 Apr 2006 at 16:19

Mikey1280 said:

my average read went up by 3mbps

What is your Average read value in HD Tach now after enabling SATA II?

Mikey1280 · 1 Apr 2006 at 21:53

Well last time I ran it it was 49 IIRC, hard drive needs defragging as well.

Alexrose1uk · 3 Apr 2006 at 08:37

Mine is 54-55MBps

Mikey1280 · 3 Apr 2006 at 09:00

@Alexrose1uk I have the 80gb, so smaller platter size or something (is that right Smids?) so slower speeds.

Alexrose1uk · 4 Apr 2006 at 18:00

Smaller platters are sometimes faster...its lower platter density thats slower ^^

smids · 4 Apr 2006 at 18:30

Mikey1280 said:
@AlexRose1uk I have the 80gb, so smaller platter size or something (is that right Smids?) so slower speeds.

As AlexRose1uk said, it's all about density. Usually the small dirve capacities have lower densities so you can almost state a trend that smaller drive = slower but this is broken in the midrange as I believe usually 250GB drives are fastest especially when the manufacturer uses the 133GB platters like Seagate - however Seagate managed to cripple those a bit! Still excellent drives. I'd like to see Hitachi use these faster platters though.