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LOSTCIRCUITS		SHORTCUTS: Accepting a Narrow Bus Internal vs. Interface Performance HDTach: ATA vs. SATA HDTach vs. WinBench99 vs. PCMark Parallel ATA Command Overhead Streamlined SATA FIS, Prelude to Performance WinBench99 Overview Winbench99 Details Business Winstone2002, File Copy Conclusions Cheetahs and Cudas on the web Comments?
Seagate Barracuda SATA-V     Kudos to Cudas
(Review by MS, February 4)

Benchmarking performance and adequately documenting the results has developed into one of the major challenges and controversies in the computer business. Theoretically, any technology that is faster and better should be able to show its benefits across the entire plethora of application. However, the complexity of today's systems along with the different performance-enhancing tricks make it extremely difficult to figure out what happens at what level within the chain of events. Within the general subject of HDD technology, those tricks encompass prediction algorithms and pre-caching of data as, for example, implemented in the Intel Application Accelerator. Bottom line is that not all that glitters is gold or rather vice versa, oftentimes, the benefits of new technologies are not as overt as they should be because the older technology has already been tweaked to the max using every trick in the book. This, however, does not imply that there won't be any new headroom, even if it is not possible to address the improvements immediately with the current tools. Else, it could mean that the current tools are probing the wrong parameters since they were written specifically to address issues of a different technology.

New Interface vs. New Internals

Before going into specifics of HDD benchmarking, there are a few issues that should be cleared up. First, it is necessary to distinguish between internal and interface performance of a drive.

The rugged, corrugated clamshell packaging of the Seagate drives also called "Seashield" is translucent and reveals the drive within while providing protection against non operational shock and ESD damage.

Internal Performance

Internal performance or media performance is exclusively a factor of the spindle rotational speed and the data density with average seek times contributing to the overall media read / write performance. This is best reflected in the well-established differences between outer and inner tracks in terms of linear read / write speed. What it really means, however, is that if the same platters are being used in two drives with either parallel or serial interface, then, by definition, there cannot be any significant difference in sustained read or write performance. Any claims to the contrary would be similar to claiming a square, er, spindle.

The connectors for the power and data cables leave no doubt about the true identity of the drive. The staggered contacts are at the under-belly of the L-shaped connectors

A case in point would be comparing e.g. a Seagate Barracuda SATA-V with a Seagate Barracuda p-ATA-V. Both models are using the same 8 MB cache, the same internal data pipelines, the same platters and the same actuators and heads. Moreover, the spindle speed is identical, that is both drives are running at 7200 rpm. Therefore, the only factor that could cause performance differences is the command overhead. This command overhead will be different for PATA and SATA interfaces, however, similar to what we know from the SiSoft Sandra memory benchmark, linear reads that are comparable to streaming data transfers will pay relatively little attention to command overheads and mostly show the overall media bandwidth.

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