[ltp] [T60] Is SATA slower than PATA?

[Alex Deucher]

On 11/13/06, James PEARSON <pearson33j@wanadoo.fr> wrote:
> Hello all
>
> openSUSE 10.1 installed perfectly on my T60 (Intel 950GMA chipset) but
> the Hitachi Travelstar 5K100 80Go Serial-ATA (HTS541080G9SA00) 5400 rpm
> hard drive that it came with is really slow.
>
> Is SATA slower than PATA? The hdparm scores on my T60 varied from 20.54
> MB/sec => openSUSE 10.1 to 30.44 =>  knoppix v5 CD). The results
> obtained by the 60 Go Hitachi 7200 rpm PATA hard drive on my old T40
> are around 38-40 MB/sec. That means that the hard drive on my old T40 is
> 1 1/2 to 2 times as faster than what I am getting to the 5400 rpm SATA
> drive on my T60. Why?
>
> Any comments or help on speeding things up would be appreciated.

Your old drive was a 7200 rpm drive; that's why it's faster.  PATA and
SATA generally don't perform too differently for the same speed drive.
 The only real difference (other than new features and the theoretical
maximums) is the electronics that provide the interface.  The actual
platters and such are the same across drives usually, so they perform
about the same.

Alex