SATA Hard Drive Question

[Ken Massingale]

As far as I have been able to find by searching, SATA drives cannot be set for Ultra DMA modes in Win XP. The Raid utility that Via provides for their SATA/Raid drivers shows DMA mode, but has no means to change it.

So, my question is, is DMA normal for SATA drives or should there be a means to get Ultra DMA modes?
I have a Maxtor SATA 150 drive that is running great, but would like to optimize it as much as possible, which is the reason I am asking.

TIA

[scorrpio]

Definition of UltraDMA:

This technology for transferring data between a computer's hard disk and memory was developed by Quantum and Intel. The maximum burst rate of an Ultra DMA hard drive is 33.3 MBps. The original DMA (Direct Memory Access) protocol could only transfer data at half that speed.

Thanks to Ultra DMA, programs can open faster and run more smoothly. This is because Utlra DMA can send more data to the memory in less time than the original DMA. Ultra DMA also has a built-in utility called Cyclical Redundancy Checking (CRC) that helps protect data integrity. So if you want a nice, fast hard drive, look for one that supports Ultra DMA.

Note the 33MBps speed - UltraDMA is legacy stuff, existing for PATA hard drives only, and Windows XP had DMA/UltraDMA settings for those only in order to be able to support older hard drives.

The interface has been upgraded somewhat over years, culminating at 133MBps, but SATA minimal rate is already 150MBps.

[rickd]

hi ken,

you're already running as fast as you can with your sata drive - it's way faster than anything you had with the old ide drives - basically you've got ultra plus!

[Ken Massingale]

Thanks scorripo and Rick. Obviously I overlooked the obvious, it makes sense now.