ABit AN8 Ultra SATA question

Hi

I am planning to buy an ABit AN8 Ultra. I want to build a cheap
reliable machine which is quick at Photoshop CS2 work.

ABit AN8 Ultra
2x 512MB DDR400 CL2.5 Corsair Memory
Radeon X800GT 256MB graphics card (for a bit of Battlefield 2!)

And this is where I get stuck. I have read everyones comments on SATAII
not being a standard but the group that is developing SATA improvement.
I was thinking of getting a 10000 Raptor for the C: drive OS and a
Samsung Spinpoint P120 SATAII drive for storing and working with images.

I have tried to read up on it but cant seem to get my head around it.
The ABit site says the AN8 supports SATA 300Mbps RAID. Does this mean
it will support the Samsung Spinpoint at full 'SATAII' speed with native
command queuing etc?

Does SATA 300Mbps RAID mean I have to set up a raid in order to get the
full support?

Can I run the Raptor as SATA1 and the Spinpoint as SATAII at the same time?

Totally confused!

"none" ""Tez\"@(none)" wrote in message
...
Hi

I am planning to buy an ABit AN8 Ultra. I want to build a cheap reliable
machine which is quick at Photoshop CS2 work.

ABit AN8 Ultra
2x 512MB DDR400 CL2.5 Corsair Memory
Radeon X800GT 256MB graphics card (for a bit of Battlefield 2!)

And this is where I get stuck. I have read everyones comments on SATAII
not being a standard but the group that is developing SATA improvement.
I was thinking of getting a 10000 Raptor for the C: drive OS and a Samsung
Spinpoint P120 SATAII drive for storing and working with images.

I have tried to read up on it but cant seem to get my head around it. The
ABit site says the AN8 supports SATA 300Mbps RAID. Does this mean it will
support the Samsung Spinpoint at full 'SATAII' speed with native command
queuing etc?

Does SATA 300Mbps RAID mean I have to set up a raid in order to get the
full support?

Can I run the Raptor as SATA1 and the Spinpoint as SATAII at the same
time?

Totally confused!

The hard disks will be limited by their physical performance at the moment,
not the bus you choose. SATA and SATAII are future proofing only. The Raptor
is a fast disk (no figures to hand), but it wouldn't even challenge an EIDE
bus! If you had two of them mirrorred, then you would possibly push a single
EIDE channel, but 133Mbs (EIDE) is way faster than any hard disk in
production. SATA can handle 150Mbs and SATA II is faster again (300Mbs?),
but the hard disks cannot manage anything close yet.

I can't comment on mixing SATAI and SATAII drives, but I would presume that
SATAII will be backwards compatible.

"none" ""Tez\"@(none)" wrote in message
...
Hi

I am planning to buy an ABit AN8 Ultra. I want to build a cheap reliable
machine which is quick at Photoshop CS2 work.

ABit AN8 Ultra
2x 512MB DDR400 CL2.5 Corsair Memory
Radeon X800GT 256MB graphics card (for a bit of Battlefield 2!)

And this is where I get stuck. I have read everyones comments on SATAII
not being a standard but the group that is developing SATA improvement.
I was thinking of getting a 10000 Raptor for the C: drive OS and a Samsung
Spinpoint P120 SATAII drive for storing and working with images.

I have tried to read up on it but cant seem to get my head around it. The
ABit site says the AN8 supports SATA 300Mbps RAID. Does this mean it will
support the Samsung Spinpoint at full 'SATAII' speed with native command
queuing etc?

Does SATA 300Mbps RAID mean I have to set up a raid in order to get the
full support?

Can I run the Raptor as SATA1 and the Spinpoint as SATAII at the same
time?

Totally confused!



Yes you will be able to run them as planned (SATAII channel is backward
compatible) and you will get full functionality (command queuing, no RAID
needed), but don't expect to get 150MB/s, much less 300MB/s. Those are
*peak* speeds (best possible scenario) not average speeds. Hard drives
aren't nearly that fast yet, even though the interface is.
--


"I don't cheat to survive. I cheat to LIVE!!"
- Alceryes

On Thu, 29 Sep 2005 13:20:37 +0100, none ""Tez\"@(none)" wrote:

Hi

I am planning to buy an ABit AN8 Ultra. I want to build a cheap
reliable machine which is quick at Photoshop CS2 work.

ABit AN8 Ultra
2x 512MB DDR400 CL2.5 Corsair Memory
Radeon X800GT 256MB graphics card (for a bit of Battlefield 2!)

And this is where I get stuck. I have read everyones comments on SATAII
not being a standard but the group that is developing SATA improvement.
I was thinking of getting a 10000 Raptor for the C: drive OS and a
Samsung Spinpoint P120 SATAII drive for storing and working with images.

I have tried to read up on it but cant seem to get my head around it.
The ABit site says the AN8 supports SATA 300Mbps RAID. Does this mean
it will support the Samsung Spinpoint at full 'SATAII' speed with native
command queuing etc?

Does SATA 300Mbps RAID mean I have to set up a raid in order to get the
full support?

Can I run the Raptor as SATA1 and the Spinpoint as SATAII at the same time?

Totally confused!

Sure probably to all that stuff as long as you obviously have the sata
connections for it. All the new standards are generally backwards
compatible except for something like say PCI EX vs AGP cause they use
different slots of course. Even the SATAs can use PATA with a adaptor
which Im using in fact.

People used to point out that RAID didnt really make that much
difference except for certain situations like servers etc. Anandtech
has an article where he tested RAID and recommended against it for the
vast majority of users saying it didnt add any extra performance and
it increased the risk of data loss with RAID 0. And SATA also was said
not to make much difference as the mechanical performance of the HD
didnt max out even the old ATA 100 interface. However there was that
article where Anandtech claimed there was a noticeable improvement in
some multitasking tests with a SATA HD with NCQ. This isnt universal
though as Ive seen some tests where NCQ didnt seem to help much at all
on some reviews.

However Im having more and more problems with my system bogging down
but I dont think the typical user probably has as many problems as I
have. For one thing I download , transfer lots of data so that with
increasing cable modem speeds it seems to slow down my system
sometimes. And stuff like video conversion totally slows down and hogs
your system sometimes for hours.

After abandoning raid Im thinking of raptors and raid again and even
SATA II with NCQ.

If you are working with Photoshop etc I would defintely think about
the dual core chips which are faster to some degree at that sort of
thing and also should be less affected by certain activities that
might slow your system down.

For video conversions if you are into that Ive found using TWO systems
is the ideal way to go. Im still going to get the dual core but I had
to jump on a second AMD 64 system deal which was too good to pass up
it was so low so I had a complete barebone system with no monitor 3200
AMD 754 socket. I hooked it up to my router which I was using for my
two existing PCs one in another room with a wireless connection.
Anyway I hooked up both AMD 64s I have side by side via cable to my
router and use remote windows control over the network to copy and
log into the other PC and let that one run for hours converting any
video or other stuff that would really bog my main system down. Its
great. Probably the best solution for that type of thing.

Even a 2000 Athlon XP some older system would be fine for it and have
its own separate Hard Disk and data bus obviously frees your main
system up to do what ever you want to do. If you do something like
video conversion etc go out and buy a cheapo barebones or case and
cheapo MB and some memory and and get a cheap deal on a hard disk and
network the system to your main system with some cheap router deal.
You dont even have to get a wireless router though they work fine as
they have wireless and wired capabilities like my cheapo belkin.

Id still like to get a dual core later for Photoshop and other video
rendering work and probably raid my system soon again to see if it
makes any difference.

If you want detailed feedback its better to ask in the ABIT
motherboard group as youll bump into people who actually have that
board and have personal experience with any quirks , bios update
issues and other minutae thats always must have info when you get a
new board.