How big a hard disk are you using?

hugoc · Post by **hugoc** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 3:25 pm

I think I worded that title in a fairly innuendo-proof way.

I need to get a bigger drive for my BP6-based system. I'm running the RU BIOS without HPT366. I e-mailed ABit and they told me that the BP6 will only support a 75GB drive, but from reading these threads it seems that plenty of people are using larger drives. I want to get at least 120GB, I don't want to use the HPT366 (nothing bad happened, but judging by all the horror stories it was only a matter of time) and I can't afford a separate controller card because nobody local stocks them, and after tax and delivery I'm looking at $80 Cdn for the cheapest one - almost as much as the drive itself.

So, I want to get some idea of the success others have had. I would be very grateful if people could post:

1) Drive model and size
2) Controller (ATA33, HPT366, or nonstandard controller)
3) Any gotchas or workarounds you had to do to get it working, problems installing, formatting, pickiness in chain location or whatever.

Thanks in advance!

Hugo

nullshark · Post by **nullshark** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 5:16 pm

I'm using a 120GB Maxtor 7200 rpm (2MB Cache) as my C: and D: drives (partitioned), on ATA33. I can't remember the model number, sorry.

It installed fine, BIOS recognized it right away and Win98 and XP installed fine as a dual boot.

It plays nice with 2 other HDDS and a burner (all on ATA33). No issues.

Wolfram · Post by **Wolfram** » Fri Apr 09, 2004 9:08 am

120 GB Samsung 5400rpm. On the HPT366

Had trouble with a Seagate U7 60GB and a Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 80GB before. Maybe that controller doesn´t like Seagates...

davd_bob · Post by **davd_bob** » Fri Apr 09, 2004 6:41 pm

80gig Western Digital 7200rpm and 8meg cache.

When you shop follow this guideline...
for storage...go for more gigs and less rpm/cache.
for speed.....go for more rpm/cache less gigs.
Don't get missled by a claim that a drive is ATA133.
Basicly they all are but none can maintain that speed after the cache emptys. The size of the cache is really important to speed.

kuun · Post by **kuun** » Fri Apr 09, 2004 8:36 pm

i have a whopping 2.4 GB hardd rive on my bp6... well on the ide controller anyhow.

i turned my bp6 into a SCSI SAN. it current;y has 4 22GB massive FULL HEIGHT (2x5.25") scsi drives and one 50GB double height (2x3.5") with 2 seperate ATX power supplies in tandem (search for it on this site it DOES work!!!)

kuun

hugoc · Post by **hugoc** » Wed Apr 21, 2004 8:33 am

Thanks for your advice, guys! I think I need not fear getting a big drive based upon what you have said. There is a local store that's selling Western Digital JB drives (the 8MB cache/7200rpm ones) cheap so now I can go pick up a 120GB unit. I just wanted to confirm that I was not wasting my money first.

Oh, and one more thing. I know that while no drive can actually outstrip an ATA133 interface or even an ATA100, am I going to be very limited by the ATA33 controller? Or will I not notice? I'm not doing anything disk-intensive, I chiefly want the drive for more storage space but if it can make the system boot and load apps faster too that's fine with me. Right now I have a 15GB Seagate Barracuda II (7200rpm) and a 10GB Seagate something-or-other (5400rpm) on the ATA33 controller.

Hugo

Wolfram · Post by **Wolfram** » Wed Apr 21, 2004 8:53 am

You will be limited to a sustained transfer rate of ~25MB/s on the ATA33 controller. My Samsung reaches ~40MB/s on the HPT366, but you´d better stay off the HPT if you want to be on the safe side.

AFAIK access times are more important for desktop use. They should not differ too much between the onboard ATA33 and an external controller.

I´ve never used an external controller on the BP6. But my older Fujitsu 7200rpm / 40GB actually felt slower on the ATA33 than on the HPT366, especially with a lot of applications running. Not sure why.

davd_bob · Post by **davd_bob** » Thu Apr 22, 2004 8:00 pm

hugoc wrote:...Western Digital 8MB cache/7200rpm...cheap

Oh, and one more thing...will I not notice?
Hugo

i got a WD80gig 8MB/7200rpm specificly for my bp6 when i first got it a cpl months ago. excitedly i tried the HPT366. only had a little trouble then discovered this website and the reputation of the '66.
yes i notice some drop in speed when i moved to the standard '33IDE port but maybe only lost 15% speed and gained nealy 100% less chance of a data crash later so i thought it was worty it. you choose your own path.

Wolfram wrote:...my older Fujitsu 7200rpm / 40GB actually felt slower on the ATA33 than on the HPT366, especially with a lot of applications running. Not sure why.

that drive probably had a 2meg cache. the HTP366 would have had double the speed anytime data actually had time to store in the cache instead of being transmitted as it was being read.

hugoc · Post by **hugoc** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 2:23 pm

That's very helpful, thank you! So, to summarise what I think I heard, I will notice some performance loss on the ATA33 but nothing crippling.

Final question: Is the Promise FastTrak 66 RAID card any good? I see one of these on EBay for $5.95 and if it's good and will get my new drive up to full speed, why not?

Hugo

BCN · Post by **BCN** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 6:19 pm

go for it if your drive is ATA66, at least you won't be on the road to HPT666...

got the meaning?

Holodeck2 · Post by **Holodeck2** » Sat Apr 24, 2004 3:24 am

I have an 80GB 7200RPM drives on the HPT and no problems yet ::knocks on wood:: and 2 on a promise raid control with striping and DANG it's fast!

it should work fine for you too
just make sure you can return it or go down to your local used computer store and pick up a promise controller, those things are bullet proof

hugoc · Post by **hugoc** » Mon Apr 26, 2004 11:08 am

I got a Promise FastTrack ATA66 RAID controller for $5.50. It should arrive sometime this week. My 15GB Seagate is ATA66, so I can use that immediately, but then I think I shall get a pair of 80GB 7200rpm/8MB drives and make them RAID 0 for speed. I'll relegate the 15GB drive to the ATA33 controller and use it for backup in case a RAIDed drive fails. So I'll end up with one 80GB drive on each ATA66 channel, and my 15GB and CDRW on each of my ATA33 channels. Should make everything nice and fast when they each have a channel to themselves.

I used to have an optical drive on the HPT366 but I could never seem to make it boot, whether I made the boot device "CDROM" or "EXT (HPT366)". I eventually switched the CDRW back to the ATA33 so that I could use bootable CD-ROMs. Is there actually any point to the HPT366 controller, apart from as an on-paper selling point for the BP6?

Thank you all for your invaluable help!

hugoc · Post by **hugoc** » Mon Apr 26, 2004 11:09 am

(duplicate post)

Holodeck2 · Post by **Holodeck2** » Mon Apr 26, 2004 11:29 am

HPT366 looks good when the bp6 was one of the first ata66 enabled mobos on the market. I think it was a hacked together at the last min project at abit.
I don't think that the HPT was equipted with ATAPI drivers so optical drives won't work on it.
can someone confirm this?

BCN · Post by **BCN** » Mon Apr 26, 2004 4:49 pm

I can confirm that they do NOT work well.

I have tried hooking up Lite-On 48x12x48 burner and it burned/stopped every half a second. Also was not reading well... After I saw how it burns on HPT666.... My god! I have unhooked it right away the first moment I could!!!

and actually I am planning on sealing the HPT connectors with silicon... hehehehe... so there would be no doubt where you can stick your devices...

is silicon non-conductive?

BCN · Post by **BCN** » Mon Apr 26, 2004 4:51 pm

Oh and yeah, at the moment I have those 2x60Gb maxtor drives with 8mb cache and 7200rpm hooked to Promise ATA133TX2 controller.

hartz69 · Post by **hartz69** » Thu May 20, 2004 2:52 am

I have a BP6 board.

I have a Hitachi Deskstar Model hds722580vlat20 82.3 GB

I can't get the bios to see it.

I tried it on IDE1 and on IDE3 as master with no success.

I have tried all the settings... lba,auto,large etc.

Any tips? Anybody KNOW that this drive will not work?

The Drive is new and blank.

purrkur · Post by **purrkur** » Thu May 20, 2004 4:06 am

Just to inform:

If you run Linux then don't worry about the size of your harddisk. The only thing you have to do is to make sure that the sectors you boot from are within the place on the harddrive that the BIOS can see and after Linux has loaded then the setup in BIOS will be discarded and Linux will be able to see the whole size.

As an example, I once had a machine with a Pentium Pro processor that I used as a file server at home. BIOS accepted a major size of 8.4 GB for the harddrive. I was running a 40GB disk on that machine and I could access all of it. The boot sector was within the first 8.4 GB that the BIOS could read.

hartz69 · Post by **hartz69** » Thu May 20, 2004 5:09 am

Well it seems that the only way to get the bios tosee my 80 gig was to set the 32 gig clip jumber setting then it booted fine. But only gave me 32 gig . Is there a bios flash up date to let it see drives bigger then 32 gigs?

purrkur · Post by **purrkur** » Thu May 20, 2004 5:28 am

Hartz69: You don't tell us what BIOS you have on your BP6

If you go here:
http://www.bp6.com/board/dload.php?act ... ile_id=41

You will find the latest BIOS available for the BP6. Please note that this BIOS does not come from Abit! However, I think most of us running a BP6 on this forum are using it. There are instructions on how to flash your BIOS found elsewhere on this site...

BP6.Com

How big a hard disk are you using?

How big a hard disk are you using?

120GB works fine for me...