Decent access times too (not crazy about that dip in transfer rates at 20% though).

clueless1 wrote:

That 600GB model reviewed has 200GB platters. My Velociraptor has 250GB platters with corresponding faster transfer rates: […]
Show full quote

gdjacobs wrote:

There's not much in it. You're right in an absolute sense, but it's not like the interface would shave much off the top.
http://www.storagereview.com/western_digital_ … ciraptor_review

That 600GB model reviewed has 200GB platters. My Velociraptor has 250GB platters with corresponding faster transfer rates:

velociraptor.png

Results are in WinXP on a D946GZIS with SATA2 (300MB/sec) interface.

The HHTZ (at least the 1TB version) is a SATA3 part. I suspect your 500GB drive is as well. The OP only asserted that SATA2 era mechanical drives wouldn't saturate ATA133 (which I agree was disproven in the case of the Gen1 Velociraptor).

Is there really a reason to care, though? After all, performance will be paced by the SATA->PATA adapter. Even at reduced performance due to the adapter, a modern inexpensive drive will be much faster than an era appropriate drive.

Carlos S. M. wrote:

Some nForce2 southbridges like MCP-S did support SATA (Remember nForce2 had 5 different southbridge variants which only 3 variants had SATA controllers). I did research on that when i made the list. You can find nForce 2 boards with SATA ports provied by the southbridge like the Gigabyte GA-7N400S. The original nForce 4 and the 4X varaint had only SATA 150 support. All other and newer nForce 4 variants featured SATA II

Interesting - I never heard of SATA southbridges on the nForce2 before, but I see now that you're right. Apparently that's even what the "-S" stands for, I was mixing up "MCP-S" with the MCP-T.

I remember trying a NAS benchmark with an nForce2 board and getting pretty lackluster results thanks to both SATA and Gigabit ethernet being on PCI. That MCP-S southbridge would have solved half of that problem at least.