SCSI Help Needed

[NanooseGuy]

A couple of years ago I bought a gaming system with a 120GB hard drive. I was told at the time that they could "upgrade me to SCSI", a faster solution for no more money..so I accepted. Recently, I added a Seagate 500GB SATAII hard drive to my system and did a quick initialize under Windows Disk Management. Now I have 2 SCSI drives!! Yet I did NOT specify SCSI in my initialization. I am totally confused.

I know that SCSI is "old" technolgy. I don't know how SCSI is entering the picture, how it is being specified and whether I should try to remove it. My objective is to get the best performance posssible by keeping Windows XP on drive C: (MY original 120GB drive) and moving my games folders to drive E: (the new 500GB drive). I would like to avoid re-installing windows and all my apps, if at all possible - unless performance is being drastically reduced by my curent setup.

Can some expert (s) give me advice on:

1) where is SCSI specified?

2) does having SCSI imply that I have some SCSI RAID controller (card) plugged into my computer? or is it all specified in SETUP?

3) would I get better performance by running the C:drive as SCSI and the new E: drive as SATAII? with NCQ? Is this possible?

4) I now have data (games) moved from my C: drive to my new E: drive. What do I need to do the maximize performance and/or get rid of SCSI? Anything?

5) I can see no reference to the 32 MB cache that the new disk drive has (see details below). Also NCQ is not turned on yet its available (whatever it is) for this drive?? If, because of SCSI this cache is being bypassed thisi would seem to me to be a big drawback performancewise.

Everyone who can help - THANKS!!

For reference, going into Windows Control Panel/ System/Hardware/Device Manager/Disk Drives shows:

Samsung SP1213C SCSI Disk Device (drive c:) and

ST350032 OAS SCSI Disk device (drive e:)

Again, in Device manager under IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers it shows:

Primary IDE Channel

Seecondary IDE Channel

VIA Bus Master IDE Controller

While there is a separate entry under SCSI and RAID Controllers:

VIA SATA RAID Controller

PC Wizard 2008 also confirms this as a VT6420 SATA RAID contoller

My motherboard is a Asus A8V-E Deluxe.

Here is a partial printout from PCWizard 2008 showing disk details:

General Information :

Informations Hard Disk SAMSUNG SP1213C :

Model : SAMSUNG SP1213C

Serial Number : S02AJ10Y501478

Revision : SV100-34

Serial ATA : No

Support : ATA/ATAPI-7

Size : 120 GB

Cache : 8 192 KB

ECC Size : 4

Multiple Sector : 16

IORDY : Yes

LBA Mode : Yes

DMA Mode : Yes

NCQ Mode : No

SCT Mode : No

DCO Mode : Yes

NV Cache : No

TCQ Mode : No

CFA Power Mode : No

SETMAX : Yes - Disabled

Multiword DMA Mode : 2

PIO Mode : PIO 4

UDMA Mode max. : 6 (ATA-133)

UDMA Mode Enabled : 6 (ATA-133)

SMART : No

SMART Self-Test : No

AAM : Yes - Disabled

Write Cache : No

Informations Hard Disk ST3500320AS :

Model : ST3500320AS

Serial Number : 5QM0LW5B

Revision : SD15

Serial ATA : No

Support : ATA8-ACS

Size : 500 GB

ECC Size : 4

Multiple Sector : 16

IORDY : Yes

LBA Mode : Yes

DMA Mode : Yes

NCQ Mode : No

SCT Mode : No

DCO Mode : Yes

NV Cache : No

TCQ Mode : No

CFA Power Mode : No

SETMAX : Yes - Disabled

Multiword DMA Mode : 2

PIO Mode : PIO 4

UDMA Mode max. : 6 (ATA-133)

UDMA Mode Enabled : 6 (ATA-133)

SMART : No

SMART Self-Test : No

AAM : No

Write Cache : No

SMART Information Disk #1 :

Health : 100% (estimated)

Performance : 100% (estimated)

Raw Read Error Rate (01) : 00000 (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 100 - Max : 100)

Spin Up Time (03) : 015C0 (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 100 - Max : 100)

Start/Stop Count (04) : 000A7 (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 100 - Max : 100)

Reallocated Sector Count (05) : 00000 (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 100 - Max : 100)

Seek Error Rate (07) : 00000 (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 100 - Max : 100)

Seek Time Performance (08) : 00000 (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 100 - Max : 100)

Power On Hours Count (09) : 0D52F (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 100 - Max : 100)

Spin Retry Count (0A) : 00000 (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 100 - Max : 100)

Calibration Retry Count (0B) : 00000 (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 100 - Max : 100)

Power Cycle Count (0C) : 000A7 (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 100 - Max : 100)

Temperature (C2) : 00017 (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 148 - Max : 169)

Hardware ECC Recovered (C3) : 00004 (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 100 - Max : 100)

Reallocation Event Count (C4) : 00000 (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 100 - Max : 100)

Current Pending Sector Count (C... 00000 (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 100 - Max : 100)

Off-Line Uncorrectable Sector C... 00000 (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 100 - Max : 100)

Ultra ATA CRC Error Rate (C7) : 00000 (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 200 - Max : 200)

Write Error Rate (C8) : 00000 (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 100 - Max : 100)

(C9) : 00000 (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 100 - Max : 100)

SMART Information Disk #2 :

Health : 100% (estimated)

Performance : 100% (estimated)

Raw Read Error Rate (01) : 00000 (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 100 - Max : 100)

Spin Up Time (03) : 015C0 (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 100 - Max : 100)

Start/Stop Count (04) : 000A7 (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 100 - Max : 100)

Reallocated Sector Count (05) : 00000 (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 100 - Max : 100)

Seek Error Rate (07) : 00000 (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 100 - Max : 100)

Seek Time Performance (08) : 00000 (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 100 - Max : 100)

Power On Hours Count (09) : 0D52F (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 100 - Max : 100)

Spin Retry Count (0A) : 00000 (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 100 - Max : 100)

Calibration Retry Count (0B) : 00000 (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 100 - Max : 100)

Power Cycle Count (0C) : 000A7 (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 100 - Max : 100)

Temperature (C2) : 00017 (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 148 - Max : 169)

Hardware ECC Recovered (C3) : 00004 (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 100 - Max : 100)

Reallocation Event Count (C4) : 00000 (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 100 - Max : 100)

Current Pending Sector Count (C... 00000 (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 100 - Max : 100)

Off-Line Uncorrectable Sec

[cluberti]

1) where is SCSI specified?

SATA chipsets are installed under the SCSI bus in Windows XP, therefore SATA controllers not in legacy IDE mode will appear as SCSI controllers, and SATA drives on those controllers will appear as SCSI drives.

2) does having SCSI imply that I have some SCSI RAID controller (card) plugged into my computer? or is it all specified in SETUP?

Answered above.

3) would I get better performance by running the C:drive as SCSI and the new E: drive as SATAII? with NCQ? Is this possible?

NCQ will improve performance, but only if the SATA controller and the SATA drive support it and you enable it in the SATA controller's BIOS (unless permanently enabled, which I've not seen done yet on a SATA controller).

4) I now have data (games) moved from my C: drive to my new E: drive. What do I need to do the maximize performance and/or get rid of SCSI? Anything?

Again, you aren't going to get "rid" of SCSI, see above.

5) I can see no reference to the 32 MB cache that the new disk drive has (see details below). Also NCQ is not turned on yet its available (whatever it is) for this drive?? If, because of SCSI this cache is being bypassed thisi would seem to me to be a big drawback performancewise.

The disk drive's cache is accessed and used by the disk's controller and the drivers, Windows will have nothing to do with it. Windows knows nothing of the drive's cache, and has no mechanisms to access it directly - it's supposed to be there to speed up disk accesses through the disk driver, and as such the driver and the disk controller/disk need to work to make use of it, not the operating system.

[NanooseGuy]

Cluberti, many thanks for your answers. You have cleared up alot. One of the things that was "throwing me" was the indicator under PC Wizard 2008 that says " Serial ATA no". Can you explain this apparent discrepancy?

Regarding your reply:

NCQ will improve performance, but only if the SATA controller and the SATA drive support it and you enable it in the SATA controller's BIOS (unless permanently enabled, which I've not seen done yet on a SATA controller).

Is it worth exploring this? How much of a performance boost can I expect? I know that the new e: drive supports NCQ. Is there a quick way to determine if the c: drive and controller do? Assuming they do, can I make the change now, after using, without re-initializing?

Thanks.

[cluberti]

Cluberti, many thanks for your answers. You have cleared up alot. One of the things that was "throwing me" was the indicator under PC Wizard 2008 that says " Serial ATA no". Can you explain this apparent discrepancy?

PC Wizard 2008 is able to determine (probably via the PCI vendor and hardware identifier) that it's a SATA device. Windows shows it as a SCSI device because ( a ) there's no real "SATA" bus identifier in Windows XP, just IDE and SCSI, and ( b ) Windows displays devices in device manager by type and bus, and nothing more. There's no discrepancy here.

Is it worth exploring this? How much of a performance boost can I expect? I know that the new e: drive supports NCQ. Is there a quick way to determine if the c: drive and controller do? Assuming they do, can I make the change now, after using, without re-initializing?

I would suggest using hdtune to determine the NCQ status of the drives in the box - but you'll have to look at the SATA controller's manual (or the mobo manual, if it's built-in) to determine from the BIOS if it's enabled or not.