SATA drives.. Enabling better performance??

[musiclover7]

I was looking at one of my 320gb SATA interna 3.5 inch drives from Seagate today, and noticed some nice little jumper pins around the back of it. Curious, it says that if they are pinned, it will limit the SATA drive to 1.5 gbps, and if not pinned, will allow 3gbps. Currently, they are pinned. I am wondering if there is a good reason for this.

Additionally, I downloaded a program from yamicsoft, called windows 7 manager, which has a free 15 day trial. In it, it there is an option to "Enable SATA disk advanced function to improve performance." if you hover over it, it says.. "This tweak will enable advanced function of your sata hard disks, and increase disk performance to decrease read/write of SATA hard disk, but it also increases chance of data loss.."

Given the last part of that sentence, I held off, but I am wondering if anyone around here can weigh in on it..

Thanks in advance for your response..

 

[Antman]

Set the jumpers to enable "SATA3". If your mobo supports it, good. If not, no foul.

You do not need any software to tweak Windows 7.

Device Manager
Disk Drive
Properties

There are two check boxes. Check the first one, don't check the second one.

Many will elaborate from here.

 

[zigzag3143]

I was looking at one of my 320gb SATA interna 3.5 inch drives from Seagate today, and noticed some nice little jumper pins around the back of it. Curious, it says that if they are pinned, it will limit the SATA drive to 1.5 gbps, and if not pinned, will allow 3gbps. Currently, they are pinned. I am wondering if there is a good reason for this.

Additionally, I downloaded a program from yamicsoft, called windows 7 manager, which has a free 15 day trial. In it, it there is an option to "Enable SATA disk advanced function to improve performance." if you hover over it, it says.. "This tweak will enable advanced function of your sata hard disks, and increase disk performance to decrease read/write of SATA hard disk, but it also increases chance of data loss.."

Given the last part of that sentence, I held off, but I am wondering if anyone around here can weigh in on it..

Thanks in advance for your response..

Modern drives usually have several settings that5 BIOS and control. Performance, normal, and quiet.

It says it all. If you hear your drive and it annoys you you can make it quieter with a slight performance hit, normal is a compromise faster but noisier, and perf is I dont care how load its is give me warp drive. Problem with perf is that it has to forgo some safety checks to achieve the speed.

Sata is a pretty safe format, but choose your poison safety or speed. Since HD is always the bottleneck device, and since I back up everything daily, and my data on this machine is not critical I use perf. perf also tends to kill drives faster. I have been thru 3 doa (seagates) in 18 months.

Good luck

Ken

 

[logicearth]

The Jumper pin is for forced compatibility with older SATA 1 controllers.

...some older SATA controllers do not properly implement SATA speed negotiation. Affected systems require the user to set the SATA 3 Gbit/s peripherals to 1.5 Gbit/s mode...

But mechanical HDD barely even fully utilize 1.5gb/s let alone 3gb/s so adjusting that really wouldn't have an effect. I have no idea about the software or its features, but enabling Advanced Host Controller Interface could be what you really want.

 

[musiclover7]

Here is a clip of the tweak I am describing..

 

[musiclover7]

K.. thanks for that folks..

 

[zigzag3143]

Here is a clip of the tweak I am describing..

My problem isn't with the warning disclaimer. Its the random failures, and freezes and data corruption that worries me.

 

[mickey megabyte]

interesting that someone has mentioned windows 7 manager.

just yesterday i got myself a job with the chinese software company, yamicsoft, to improve the english translation used on this program.

@antman - i don't agree that you don't need software to tweak windows 7 - control panel applets and regedit are software after all. while i admit that third party tweakers need to be used with caution, well-written tools make the job a lot easier. personally, i find it a lot simpler ticking or unticking boxes or moving slider controls, rather than having to trawl through countless obscure and cryptic registry keys if i want to make changes to my operating system.

 

[SIW2]

You don't need it. It may be convenient.

 

[Antman]

Here is a clip of the tweak I am describing..

And here is the simple thing it does...

.

 

[Antman]

...just yesterday i got myself a job with the chinese software company, yamicsoft, to improve the english translation used on this program...

@antman - i don't agree that you don't need software to tweak windows 7 ....

First, congrats on the new contract.

Secondly, my most pleasant surprise about Windows 7 was that most of the valid performance and enhancement tweaks, and customization tweaks, were easily accessible through the GUI. The few that remain without a GUI are well documented and available as simple reg file merges at a number of trustworthy sites, including SF.

No need to play the BS licensing game with TweakVI, no taking chances with malware's clever look-alike names. No need to install multiple tweaking apps to address the shortcomings of other tweaking apps. Even TweakUI contained the BagsMRU error (Bags MRU typo).

edit: How many of these apps still contain "Disable paging executive" and label it as a performance enhancer?

I am looking forward to the needless revenue that these apps will generate for my tech support and repair business. And the forum influx.

That being said, I completely agree that a single, well-written tweaking app is a nice tool. I want one. The winner in this category likely does not exist today. Until, of course, you m-square away the yamicsoft offering.

 

[mickey megabyte]

as usual, valid points Anthony. i just can't help being a pedant (i know i shouldn't have read both Korzybski {Science and Sanity} and Robert Anton Wilson {Quantum Psychology} at an impressionable age... )

That being said, I completely agree that a single, well-written tweaking app is a nice tool. I want one. The winner in this category likely does not exist today. Until, of course, you m-square away the yamicsoft offering.

i've already started m-squaring away - i'm trying hard to remember to capitalize and use american spelling, even though it really hurts!

 

[DJG]

I was looking at one of my 320gb SATA interna 3.5 inch drives from Seagate today, and noticed some nice little jumper pins around the back of it. Curious, it says that if they are pinned, it will limit the SATA drive to 1.5 gbps, and if not pinned, will allow 3gbps. Currently, they are pinned. I am wondering if there is a good reason for this.

...

Thanks in advance for your response..

I use lots of Seagate SATA drives, and it annoyed me to no end that they came set to SATA 1 by default and they so thoughtfully made the jumper half-height so as to make it almost impossible to get the damned thing out without mutilating something. Lately they appear to come without the jumper, set for SATA 2. They probably figured they could save some money by not including the jumper ... :sarc: