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July 20th, 2009 10:00

How to find version of SATA controller?

Looking at WesternDigital's website, the older SATA controllers do not use autospeed negotiation hence I am wondering if fitting faster drive (7200 vs 5400 rpm) will be of benefit .... although this "autospeed negotiation " may refer to data transfer as opposed to data transfer.

So how do I find out the chipset or version of my SATA controller?

FYI, These First Generation Serial ATA (SATA I) controllers include the following chipsets:

  • VT8237
  • VT8237R
  • VT6420
  • VT6421L
  • SIS760
  • SIS964

See http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1337&p_sid=dqe3ujDj&p_lva=1461

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87.5K Posts

July 20th, 2009 12:00

What model system do you have?

 

30 Posts

July 20th, 2009 13:00

dell latitude e6400   bought new in 2009, so can't imagine it was manufactured earlier than 2008.

running vista - 32 bit

 looking in device manager,

computer:  ACPI x86-based PC

IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers (presumably that is he hared disc controller? :  Ricoh SD/MMC Host Controller

Storage controllers: Intel ICH8M-E/ICH9m-E SATA RAID controller

Microsoft iSCSI Initator

.... doesn't mean a lot to me and doesn't aswer me question :(

9.3K Posts

July 20th, 2009 14:00

As you posted yourself already, your system has the Intel ICH8/ICH9 chipset, so the concerns about the speed are irrelevant as they are only for when you're using those few VIA or SIS chipsets/sata controllers.

30 Posts

July 21st, 2009 01:00

briliant thanks.

more searching reveals that my current hard drive, WD 80 GB scorpio blue,  WD5000BEVT, is specc'ed to run at

Transfer Rates
Buffer To Host (Serial ATA) 3 Gb/s (Max)

so the scropio black should be a driect plug in replacement.

I am assuming the the device driver is displaying the correct part as I have yet to peek inside the lappy.

 

thanks to all who replied, seems I can go ahead and buy and swap.

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87.5K Posts

July 22nd, 2009 05:00

Just remember that buffer to host is meaningless - the real indicator of performance is platter to buffer - which will be about 70 MBps max.

 

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