I really can't give you an accurate answer to your question. There are
several factors that go into actual transfer rates.

In other words, there is the rate, when all conditions are perfect (which
they really never are), that data can be transferred. And then there is the
actual rate that you are getting.

I have not benchmarked these drives to know the actual rate that I am
getting on my SATA drives, but the potential rate is much higher than on
PATA drives. Also I have a front bus speed of 800, which is pretty good.
You can have fast transfer rates with the drives, but if the bus is not too
fast, 533 or 400, then that slows down the time it takes for the data to get
to the CPU, right?

A big factor in noticable performance improvement is the large cache. 8 MB
in the SATA vs. 1 MB in the PATA drives. The CPU often asks for the next in
line piece of data from the drives, and having that data already retrieved
and stored in the drive's cache speeds up that whole process, thereby
improving overall performance.

Of course, using RAID 0, striping, cuts read and write time by almost 50%.
All of these factors go into the overall speed and performance of a
computer.

BTW, I am currently using a Pentium 4, 3.0 GHz, but have a new 3.2 GHz that
I am going to upgrade to when I get some time. I have read the 3.4 runs too
hot, and the higher speed than that are too expensive for me.

Lonny


"Wally" wrote in message
. uk...
Lonny Bruce wrote:

Still, one hard drive will fail before the others will. When it
fails, it can be replaced, and the data rebuilt before the next one
fails. BTW, I am using 10,000 RPMs and SATA, not PATA, so I enjoy
faster transfers, with 8 MB cache, as opposed to 1 MB cache used with
most PATA hard drives.

As a matter of interest, what sort of transfer rates do you get?


--
Wally
www.artbywally.com
www.wally.myby.co.uk