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View Full Version : SATA 3Gbps and jumpers...

Redeemed
12-13-09, 01:28 PM
Okay, betterdan's thread got me thinking about this.

My i7 rig, mostly during load times (loading a program or loading windows- times where there's heavy hard drive usage like transferring data from one drive to the next, etc), seems slower than expected. I mean, it honestly doesn't seem any faster than my Phenom 9600BE rig I had last year. Once a game is loaded and I'm playing it, I don't really consider that a fair comparison as my Phenom 9600BE rig had dual 9600GTs while my i7 setup is running dual 8800GTXs... I'd expect the i7 rig to perform better simply due to the faster video cards.

Anyhow, I'm pretty confident it's my HDD that is holding me back. Now, I've read betterdan's AHCI thread and might enable AHCI just to see what it does. But I also remember reading about how some SATA 3Gbps drives have a jumper. This jumper determines whether the drive is operating in SATA 150 or SATA 3Gbps mode. Now, I've never really worried about this before- I just installed the drive, installed windows, drives, updates, and programs and then called it good.

But I'm curious, all this while I could have been getting greater performance from my hard drive than what it I currently am.

I don't recall the exact model number of my hard drive, and I'm not at home so I cannot look it up. It is a Samsung 500GB drive, however, has 16MB Cache and 7200RPM spindle speed. I did try looking on Samsung's website for any info but found nothing- so going off of memory alone I believe the drive's model number is something to the effect of "501LG"... not 100% certain. I'm going to continue looking into this, but was just curious if ya'll might know more about this than I? If Samsung mentions nothing about the jumpers on their website, does that mean I cannot enable or disable SATA 3Gbps for my drive?

Guess I'm just curious how all this works. If I can get a slight speed boost from my drive by simply changing a jumper that'd be awesome. I'm not expecting miracles, just curious if there's some un-tapped performance waiting to unleashes. :D

Thanks in advance ya'll! :D
Redeemed
12-13-09, 02:44 PM
http://www.samsung.com/us/support/detail/supportPrdDetail.do?menu=SP12&prd_ia_cd=05040100&prd_mdl_cd=HD501LJ&prd_mdl_name=HD501LJ&prd_ia_sub_class_cd=P

If I recall that is my drive.
betterdan
12-13-09, 02:56 PM
Well if that's your drive they have some manuals to download where you can look up your jumper question ;)
Redeemed
12-13-09, 03:11 PM
Well if that's your drive they have some manuals to download where you can look up your jumper question ;)

Those are for PATA drives. I have no idea why those would be there, as the drive is SATA- look under the specs.

Though maybe I should give those guides a look. I just assumed that since they are for PATA drives they'd not contain any relevant information.
grey_1
12-13-09, 03:33 PM
This what you want?

http://safemanuals.com/fullswf-SAMSUNG.php?type=.SWF&file=SWF/SAMSUNG/12-03-08-04-55-35-1962&langue=en&img_width=510&img_height=238&cat=vide

http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/881/41938804.jpg (http://img521.imageshack.us/i/41938804.jpg/)
Redeemed
12-13-09, 04:01 PM
This what you want?

http://safemanuals.com/fullswf-SAMSUNG.php?type=.SWF&file=SWF/SAMSUNG/12-03-08-04-55-35-1962&langue=en&img_width=510&img_height=238&cat=vide

http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/881/41938804.jpg (http://img521.imageshack.us/i/41938804.jpg/)

WOW- thanks grey! That's exactly what I was after. Not being home I cannot try this, but I do hope it works. :) Would be neat to have slightly faster load times.

I have to ask- did you find this on Samsung's site? And if so, where? :o
Redeemed
12-13-09, 04:05 PM
So, I'm assuming it's as simple as removing the jumper? I don't have to move it to a different position? That guide wasn't very precise. It seems to me if placing the jumper on those two pins forces 1.5Gbps then simply removing it should enable 3Gbps.
grey_1
12-13-09, 06:43 PM
WOW- thanks grey! That's exactly what I was after. Not being home I cannot try this, but I do hope it works. :) Would be neat to have slightly faster load times.

I have to ask- did you find this on Samsung's site? And if so, where? :o

I posted the link for you with the original post. :)

I would guess you're correct on removing the jumper. I would just bench it, then remove the jumper and bench it some more -see if it improves performance.
Redeemed
12-13-09, 06:51 PM
I posted the link for you with the original post. :)

I would guess you're correct on removing the jumper. I would just bench it, then remove the jumper and bench it some more -see if it improves performance.

Will do.

I was just curious because I scoured the site looking for info and found nothing. I'd feel kinda' bad if it was right there under my nose this entire time. :o

Anyhow, I do appreciate this. I'm gonna' try this when I get home (in about 20 minutes, probably :D ). :)
grey_1
12-13-09, 06:54 PM
Will do.

I was just curious because I scoured the site looking for info and found nothing. I'd feel kinda' bad if it was right there under my nose this entire time. :o

Anyhow, I do appreciate this. I'm gonna' try this when I get home (in about 20 minutes, probably :D ). :)

That's odd, it opens right to the image I posted for you for me. There's really nothing else to see there regarding that jumper though. It's probably just that straight forward.

Good luck with it Bro.
Redeemed
12-13-09, 07:02 PM
That's odd, it opens right to the image I posted for you for me. There's really nothing else to see there regarding that jumper though. It's probably just that straight forward.

Good luck with it Bro.
:lol:

My apologies grey- what I meant is how did you happen upon that link? It works fine for me, just as it appears in that image you posted.

I'm just curious if you found that on Samsung's website. What I meant when I said "I scoured the website and found nothing" was that last night I searched every where I could think of on Samsung's website and found nothing. I was just curious if I some how over looked it. :o

My bad, again. :( :o
grey_1
12-13-09, 07:15 PM
No probs man - I just googled your hdd model with '3G jumper' attached. I think it was the first link.
Redeemed
12-13-09, 07:30 PM
No probs man - I just googled your hdd model with '3G jumper' attached. I think it was the first link.

Google, the one site I *didn't* look. :lol: :o
frenchy2k1
12-14-09, 01:07 PM
to be honest, you may be disappointed by the performance increase.
No HDD can *sustain* more than 80MB/s of transfer, which SATA 1.5 supports easily. The only difference will when you hit the cache, but it never lasts.

You will bench a little bit higher, but I doubt it will make much difference in a day to day usage.

I would recommend a defrag though, to improve perfs, and limiting the amount of things running at the same time (especially unused services). Or switch to a SSD.