New Sata-Drives in a K6-System

Discussion relating to Socket 7 hardware.
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DonPedro
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New Sata-Drives in a K6-System

Post by DonPedro »

hello everybody,

hope you are all doing well, k6-comrades!

I am back again at least for this post to drop some info (time has become very limited to show up more often).

I upgraded my old samsung 1213n harddisk (120gb, ide), which was connected to the onboard ata-66 ide-connector (ga 5ax rev 5.2) and holds all data-files. the operating system still resides on another samsung of same type, connected with the onboard-ide interface.

The replacement is a western digital WD6400aaks disk (640gb, sata).

So I bought a sata-pci card (delock, via 6421 chipset) and at the same time learned of another method to use sata-disks in old ide-systems: converters!

converters (there are different kinds available) in general are small pcbs that feature an ide-connector AND a sata-connector, where the first one is connected either to the onboard-ide-connector or the ide-cable and the second port is connected with some sata-device (disk, cd, dvd). they act as translator between sata and ide. benefit: just plug and go, no driver needed, works with all operating systems.

I researched a little bit and found converters with marvell chipsets to be the best: both in performance and compatibility (dvd drives work flawlessly). so finally I bought a delock converter 61702 which has the very nice feature that you can choose the drive to work in master or slave mode, meaning you can operate 2 sata drives on one ide - channel.

In order to know how a sata-disk (the wd6400aaks) performs

a) directly connected to the sata circuitry (pci addon card, via 6421)
b) when connected via converter (marvell 88SA8052) to an ide-subsytem

I installed a promise ata-133 ide-addon card to stretch the limits of the onboard ide (66) adapter.

both results show that it really pays to install new sata-technology in our old systems.

the test machine:
ga-5ax rev. 5.2
3x256 ram (2-2-2-5)
k6-3-450+ at 550mhz
geforce-2-mx 32mb
miro pctv card
real sigma em8300 mpeg-2 decoder karte (realmagic hollywood plus)
sblive 5.1
realtek rt8139 lan-card
via vt641 sata/ide card / promise ata-133 ide-card
os: nt4

for my test I used the benchmark tool atto version 2.41 and hdtune 1.0
I had to use the old hdtune 1.0 because newer versions don't work under nt4.

hdtune was intended here to measure delay (latency) of disk access.

both ways to connect the sata disk gave the same result: 12.0 ms, which is clear evidence that the converter does his job without time consuming interference!

read / write performance was tested with atto. to sum it up:

direct connection gives up to 95,5 mb/s write speed, 97 mb/s read speed! that is just formidable!

connected via converter gives slower performance, but still nothing to really complain about: 74,5 mb/s write speed, 87 mb/s read speed

interesting to note is the fact that the converter gives better results up to 4 kb transfer size and is still on par at 8 kb transer size.

the picture below shows the result of the sata-pci-card (via) on the left side, results of the converter (marvell) to the right.
Attachments
vergleich atto 241 wdc6400aaks delock converter sata-ide promise 133 nt4 k6-3-550.png
vergleich atto 241 wdc6400aaks delock converter sata-ide promise 133 nt4 k6-3-550.png (19.57 KiB) Viewed 17430 times
Jim
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RE: New Sata-Drives in a K6-System

Post by Jim »

Very interesting Peter. Could you clarify a bit about what the advantages of the converter are, apart from not needing drivers, and being compatable with any OS ?
Superpuppy 3
K6-3+ 450 ACZ (6x100)
DFI K6BV3+/66 Rev B2 (2 Meg) w/ 2x28mm Chipset Fans
2x256 Meg PC 133 Hynix SDRAM
1x 20G Maxtor (7200)
2x 80G Maxtor (7200) Ducted w/ 2x486 Fans Mount
52/24/52/16 LG CDR/RW/DVD
8/4/3/12/24/16/32 LG Super Multi
ATI 9000 aiw Radeon AGP
SB Audigy 1 MP3 Sound
CMD 649 IDE Controller
NEC USB 2 Card
DonPedro
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Joined: Wed Jul 27, 2005 2:11 pm

Post by DonPedro »

advantages of using converters over add-on sata-pci cards are

- no usage of scarce pci-slot (less energy, less heat, no system ressources used) in case of using onboard-ide controller
- you can use fast bootable ide-pci addon-cards (via-based sata cards are not bootable on s7-systems; they are bootable according to the people at delock, but this feature does not work with s7-systems)
- no drivers needed
- most sata-cards have only 2 sata-ports, with converters you can have 4 sata devices in master/slave operation
Jim
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Post by Jim »

It's some trouble, but when you have time could you post a picture of this setup, so I can get a better idea of what is involved ? Thanks. Or if that is too much trouble give me a link to pictures of this kind of setup. Tahnks again.
Superpuppy 3
K6-3+ 450 ACZ (6x100)
DFI K6BV3+/66 Rev B2 (2 Meg) w/ 2x28mm Chipset Fans
2x256 Meg PC 133 Hynix SDRAM
1x 20G Maxtor (7200)
2x 80G Maxtor (7200) Ducted w/ 2x486 Fans Mount
52/24/52/16 LG CDR/RW/DVD
8/4/3/12/24/16/32 LG Super Multi
ATI 9000 aiw Radeon AGP
SB Audigy 1 MP3 Sound
CMD 649 IDE Controller
NEC USB 2 Card
DonPedro
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Joined: Wed Jul 27, 2005 2:11 pm

Post by DonPedro »

jim,
I don't understand what you mean by picture of setup?
Jim
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Location: Toronto

Post by Jim »

I mean I have no idea what these things are or how they hookup to a computer. If they don't take a PCI slot, what is the connection? I'd Like to see a picture of one hooked up so I have some idea of what is involved.
Superpuppy 3
K6-3+ 450 ACZ (6x100)
DFI K6BV3+/66 Rev B2 (2 Meg) w/ 2x28mm Chipset Fans
2x256 Meg PC 133 Hynix SDRAM
1x 20G Maxtor (7200)
2x 80G Maxtor (7200) Ducted w/ 2x486 Fans Mount
52/24/52/16 LG CDR/RW/DVD
8/4/3/12/24/16/32 LG Super Multi
ATI 9000 aiw Radeon AGP
SB Audigy 1 MP3 Sound
CMD 649 IDE Controller
NEC USB 2 Card
DonPedro
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Joined: Wed Jul 27, 2005 2:11 pm

Post by DonPedro »

this should do it ...
Jim
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Joined: Wed Jan 21, 2004 7:10 pm
Location: Toronto

Post by Jim »

Does that go in a 5.25 inch bay or a floppy bay ?
Superpuppy 3
K6-3+ 450 ACZ (6x100)
DFI K6BV3+/66 Rev B2 (2 Meg) w/ 2x28mm Chipset Fans
2x256 Meg PC 133 Hynix SDRAM
1x 20G Maxtor (7200)
2x 80G Maxtor (7200) Ducted w/ 2x486 Fans Mount
52/24/52/16 LG CDR/RW/DVD
8/4/3/12/24/16/32 LG Super Multi
ATI 9000 aiw Radeon AGP
SB Audigy 1 MP3 Sound
CMD 649 IDE Controller
NEC USB 2 Card
DonPedro
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Posts: 578
Joined: Wed Jul 27, 2005 2:11 pm

Post by DonPedro »

jim,
it is only the small 5.85 x 2.54 cm ciruitry board, that is to be attached to the sata-drive. it plugs directly in where the drive normally is connected to data / power cables. on the other side of the pcb you plug in power cable and ide-cable.

it is that simple.
Jim
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Joined: Wed Jan 21, 2004 7:10 pm
Location: Toronto

Post by Jim »

I saw that part; but I thought the other item shown in the picture was part of it. Guess not. Thanks Peter.
Superpuppy 3
K6-3+ 450 ACZ (6x100)
DFI K6BV3+/66 Rev B2 (2 Meg) w/ 2x28mm Chipset Fans
2x256 Meg PC 133 Hynix SDRAM
1x 20G Maxtor (7200)
2x 80G Maxtor (7200) Ducted w/ 2x486 Fans Mount
52/24/52/16 LG CDR/RW/DVD
8/4/3/12/24/16/32 LG Super Multi
ATI 9000 aiw Radeon AGP
SB Audigy 1 MP3 Sound
CMD 649 IDE Controller
NEC USB 2 Card
DonPedro
K6'er Elite
Posts: 578
Joined: Wed Jul 27, 2005 2:11 pm

Post by DonPedro »

one last but important hint:
the sata drive must be able to communicate via sata-1 modus! most sata-2 drives do but especially in the case of ssd-disks one should be prepared that many manufacturers / models skip sata-1 support. so get sure that the drive supports sata-1 before spending the money ..
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Uranium235
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Post by Uranium235 »

:shock: This is great information DonPedro. How does the motherboards BIOS recognize the Sata drive on the hardware configuration screen during bootup? Does Windows see the drive as IDE or Sata?
Somehow this setup seems to get around the 137GB ATA interface limit...interesting. :)
DonPedro
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Post by DonPedro »

converter: drives are recognized as ide-drives - otherwise the converter would not do its job ;)

the converter also does NOT change anything regarding the size limit. in my case I used a promise-ide pci-adapter to connect the wdc6400aaks drive to the system. so it is the promise-adapter which is taking care for expanding the size-limit.
KenB
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Post by KenB »

Nice post. I myself am using a SATA-PCI adapter with a 1.5TB Samsung drive on my old K6-III+ system. Runs good.
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swaaye
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Post by swaaye »

I have a couple of converters that go the other way and adapt a PATA drive to SATA. They work great. But they add $10 to the drive essentially.

I'd never considered the advantages over a PCI IDE card though.

However, I have a few Promise and Silicon Image PATA PCI cards and can boot these even on my ancient 486 PCI mobo. I'm surprised a K6 mobo would refuse to boot a PCI PATA card. One of the Promise cards is a SATA150 TX2 which has 1 PATA and 2 SATA plugs and I used that to boot a SATA drive on my 486 once! :D
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