[Rob Alexander]

Originally Posted by Jason Dunn

Nope, ATA is all BIOS-level stuff. You'll have to check the BIOS and see if the drive is in that mode. Assuming that your motherboard supports it, it's automatic though - no need to turn it on.

In the "you learn something new every day" department, yes, you can check that from inside of XP, though you have to know what drive is on which channel. Go to Device Manager and open IDE/ATAPI Controllers list. Double-click on either Primary or Secondary IDE Channel (whichever one has the drive you're interested in). You can determine the mode your drive is currently running in by looking in the box labelled 'Current Transfer Mode'. Again, you have to know whether the drive is master (Device 0) or slave (Device 1). Here's what the mode numbers mean.

Ultra DMA Mode 5 - 100 MB/s (ATA100)
Ultra DMA Mode 4 - 66.7 MB/s (ATA66)
Ultra DMA Mode 3 - 44.4 MB/s
Ultra DMA Mode 2 - 33.3 MB/s (ATA33)
Ultra DMA Mode 1 - 25 MB/s
Ultra DMA Mode 0 - 16.7 MB/s (original ATA)

Also, there are times when you need to turn it on. Many CD-ROMs, CD-Rs and DVD players get installed with DMA turned off by default. If you're having performance problems, check here and change the setting to 'DMA if available'. If the device supports DMA, this will turn it on. If it doesn't it won't have any effect.

I've never personally had a DMA hard drive fail to be set to its highest potential before, but checking this is a common suggestion for people having hard drive performance problems, so it must happen sometimes.

[Rob Alexander]

Originally Posted by Jason Dunn

Nope, ATA is all BIOS-level stuff. You'll have to check the BIOS and see if the drive is in that mode. Assuming that your motherboard supports it, it's automatic though - no need to turn it on.

In the "you learn something new every day" department, yes, you can check that from inside of XP, though you have to know what drive is on which channel. Go to Device Manager and open IDE/ATAPI Controllers list. Double-click on either Primary or Secondary IDE Channel (whichever one has the drive you're interested in). You can determine the mode your drive is currently running in by looking in the box labelled 'Current Transfer Mode'. Again, you have to know whether the drive is master (Device 0) or slave (Device 1). Here's what the mode numbers mean.

Ultra DMA Mode 5 - 100 MB/s (ATA100)
Ultra DMA Mode 4 - 66.7 MB/s (ATA66)
Ultra DMA Mode 3 - 44.4 MB/s
Ultra DMA Mode 2 - 33.3 MB/s (ATA33)
Ultra DMA Mode 1 - 25 MB/s
Ultra DMA Mode 0 - 16.7 MB/s (original ATA)

Also, there are times when you need to turn it on. Many CD-ROMs, CD-Rs and DVD players get installed with DMA turned off by default. If you're having performance problems, check here and change the setting to 'DMA if available'. If the device supports DMA, this will turn it on. If it doesn't it won't have any effect.

I've never personally had a DMA hard drive fail to be set to its highest potential before, but checking this is a common suggestion for people having hard drive performance problems, so it must happen sometimes.

[st63z]

I thought XP defaults to enabling DMA mode on optical drives (whereas previous Win2K doesn't)? I check this on the 2K machines, but my home XP had it on by default.

BTW, anyone knows of any current "gotchas" with SATA's hot-plug support in Windows? I know this is still early, so I was wondering if I should watch out for anything (like using parallel HDDs with SATA controller via those parallel/serial adapters just now coming to market). Hot plug is one of the major reasons I'm liking SATA...

P.S. Incidentally, I'm thinking Maxtor might do well changing their corporate name to "Mother Maxtor"...

[don dre]

With half my WD 60gb drive full of mp3's (all at 224k or higher...the need for small size escapes me since I also have a 1gb microdrive) and my newfound love for downloading simpsons episodes so i don;t have to subsribe to cable it hink i am going to fill it up fast. especially if more people used higher quality digital files. I haven't seen one good asf file yet. At any rate, I was on panasonic's site yesterday and saw they have a 4gb SD card listed as "not available". Anyone know what the time frame is on that?

[Jonathon Watkins]

Hmmmm, dangerous having that amount of space on 1 HD. Can we all say "too many eggs in one basket"?. I would prefer Raid 5 to become cheaper & inbuilt to Motherbaords. I would rather have 3 x 120Gb drives at RAID 5 (240Gb) than one massive 320Gb drive. I've had a few drives go down on me at various times, and the thought of a 320 drive dying fills me with dread - especially as many HD makers are slashing their warranties from 3 years to 1! :roll:

[klinux]

Don Dre:

I now find it a lot more satisfying to rent the Simpson DVD and then rip/encode your own (divx, MPEG, etc)! You will have much better control over the size and quality of the result files rather than downloading.

[Jason Dunn]

Originally Posted by klinux

Don Dre:

I now find it a lot more satisfying to rent the Simpson DVD and then rip/encode your own (divx, MPEG, etc)! You will have much better control over the size and quality of the result files rather than downloading.

Oh, you know, you could just buy them. :lol:

[Jonathan1]

HOLY SWEET JESUS! 8O Mommy I'm scared!

So tell me how the heck do you back this dang thing up?!?!
CD?!? No chance in heck.
DLT?!?! At $80 a pop that would cost a fortune.
DVD-R HEH. It would only take about 50 or so....


Hmmm I think I'll stick in the 150 200GB range. At least its conceivable to back up my info on those....

Hmmm wonder what the price point is gonna be on this bad boy?

[st63z]

Originally Posted by Jonathan1

HOLY SWEET JESUS! 8O Mommy I'm scared!

So tell me how the heck do you back this dang thing up?!?!
CD?!? No chance in heck.
DLT?!?! At $80 a pop that would cost a fortune.
DVD-R HEH. It would only take about 50 or so....


Hmmm I think I'll stick in the 150 200GB range. At least its conceivable to back up my info on those....

Hmmm wonder what the price point is gonna be on this bad boy?

There there, no need to be scared. Just get twin drives and use the second to back up the first Ghost/DI imaging or FastTrak real-time mirror.

(Or you can go high-end $$$ and get a real RAID board w/ hardware RAID 5 -- check SR, and get triplet drives)

P.S. Or, ya know, wait for blue laser...

[Jonathon Watkins]

OK, so 3 of these and a HW RAID card and I'm set! LOL :lol: Now, how am I going to fill 640Gb of storage? You know, I currently have 120Gb of HD space and that's more than enough for now. I really don't have a use for this kind of space!

It's only really of use for digital video isn't it. I have all my CD collection ripped, that's 40Gb, the phots from my digital camera take up 10Gb and growing, but not that fast. So - I really don't need one of these.