Storage Solutions Does my HDD have NCQ?

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Mafia

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Hi

I have a Seagate SATA 160GB HDD.

Is there any way to determine whether my HDD supports NCQ or not?
 
find out the model number of your drive by looking at the front plate and then google using the same along with the word 'specifications' .

Only SATA 2 hard drives have NCQ :)
 
No, SATA HDDs too have NCQ.

At the time I bought my HDD, there were 2 HDDs on the Seagate website. 1 with NCQ and 1 without NCQ. That time SATA II didn't even exist.

But now when I see inthe website, NCQ isn't written on any SATA 160GB HDD.

At that time even the seller said it was NCQ.

Is there any way to check whether it is SATA or not, eg: by testing its performance against a NCQ or normal SATA one.
 
^^Just google the model no man. Urs is a 7200.7 i guess, those came in two versions with and without NCQ

Eh?? Did u mean any way to check if its SATA or not? :S
 
Yes, mine is the one which came in 2 models. Anyway, now that has bee replaced by a new RMAd one. Anyway I can compare my performance to that of an ordinary SATA?
 
^^Download HD tach and then have a look at the "Post your HD Tach scores" thread. You can get a good comparison from there
 
Just run HDTune and you will see the answer....

HDTune.jpg
 
Just to reassure you - I have 3 Maxtor SATA 1 non-NCQ HDDs and this proggy does not show them as having NCQ.
 
@eazy, which Hitachi HDD do you have? How much did it cost? Is it faster for gaming and running Vista than the maxtor ones?
 
Some of the fastest drives currently available are from the seagate 7200.10 series, else get the WD Raptors which are easily the fastest. Also depends on what capacity you looking for
 
I am not buying a new HDD, Iwas generally asking as I was surprised at the features available in his HDD.
 
Mafia said:
@eazy, which Hitachi HDD do you have? How much did it cost? Is it faster for gaming and running Vista than the maxtor ones?
Click to expand...

I have the Hitachi 160GB SATA II as well as the 250GB SATA II and a 160GB IDE HDDs.

The one in the picture is the 160 GB SATA II single platter HDD which is a very nice HDD.

The 250GB cost me 3950/- the 160 SATA cost me 2825/- ... I buy my HDDs from APEX at Lamington Road.

About any difference in the HDDs - NOPE - they all give me around the same REAL LIFE data transfer speeds which is around 52MB/s in XP - all the Hitachis and Maxtors are alike. I have 3.5 GB backup image files which I move around between drives and I use Total Commander to handle files - this proggy shows the real time data transfer speeds. In HDTach I see quite a bit of variations in speeds the 160 GB SATA II gives 65 MB/s the 250GB SATA II gives 56 MB/s.

I ran Vista RC1 on a 160GB SATA II as well as a 250GB SATA II Hitachi and dont think I saw any difference in DATA Transfer speeds from either HDD.

The real life data transfer rates I get in Vista is MAX at 63 MB/s whilst with XP I get a MAX of around 52MB/s on same HDDs and same file transfers. Vista seems to copy files noticeably faster than XP.

@thexfactor ... compare the results I posted of my Hitachi 160GB SATA II HDD in the HDTach thread with the other results of people the Seagate 250/320GB 7200.10 HDDs .... I think they are about the same - little differences..... AND.... the Hitachi HDDs are a bit cheaper than the Seagates..... for the 160GB SATA II single platter drives the difference was 275/-.
 
maybe a pretty... noob question...but since i dnt have any knwlg.

can u plz tell me whats NCQ and how does it help in performance etc ?
 
faheem_m said:
maybe a pretty... noob question...but since i dnt have any knwlg.
can u plz tell me whats NCQ and how does it help in performance etc ?
Click to expand...

I asked Google "what is NCQ" .... answer I got.....

What is NCQ (Native Command Queuing)?

NCQ is a powerful interface/disc technology designed to increase performance of serial ATA drives by allowing them to internally optimize the execution order of workloads. Like other mechanical devices the performance of SATA drives are hampered by the inertia of their components which effectively limits the speed of media access and retrieval of data. The effect of this may be minimized using an intelligent internal management of the sequence of mechanical processes. NCQ uses Direct Memory Access (DMA) to improve data transfer performance, and it uses an always-available channel to indicate which commands have been completed.

A SATA drive that supports NCQ has an internal queue in which commands can be dynamically rescheduled and reordered. NCQ includes a tracking mechanism for both outstanding and completed portions of the drive workload. In addition, NCQ can let the host issue additional commands to the drive while the drive looks for another command.

NCQ comprises three main components of functionality:

Command queue building in the drive: A SATA NCQ drive can either queue commands or execute them immediately. The drive knows what protocol to apply to different commands. It assigns a unique tag to commands.
Transferring data for each command: NCQ lets the drive set up a direct memory access (DMA) operation for a data transfer without host software intervention. The drive controls the DMA engine, selects transfers to minimize latencies, and optimizes command ordering.
Returning status for completed commands: The drive returns a status for completed commands. Command status is race-free, which means a status for any command can be communicated at any time, without a handshake between device and host. Host and drive use a 32-bit register to communicate about outstanding commands, and keep this register always accurate.

NCQ generates measurable benefits, especially in the area of performance, producing vastly improved performance with highly transactional workloads. The performance benefit can amount to an addition of as much as a 10K SATA drive's performance. NCQ is complementary to several performance-boosting features that are part of the SATA protocol. Additionally, as a result of its command and data handling, NCQ reduces the mechanical wear and tear on drives and improves their endurance.

For further information read the white paper on NCQ from Seagate available at http://www.seagate.com/pdf/whitepape...x_sata_ncq.pdf
Click to expand...

What is NCQ (Native Command Queuing)? - The Tech FAQ Forum

A NOOBs explanation of NCQ I read said that NCQ is like when 3 people get into a Lift in a 10 floor building and the first person person presses Floor 10 and the second floor 5 and the thirst floor 7 .... instead of going to 10 and then 5 and then 7 the lift goes to 5 first and 7 next and last to 10 even tho the 10th floor button was pressed first ..... THAT IS WHAT NCQ does in a HDD it picks up the nearest requested data on the way to the picking up other data further away from the heads which may have been requested first.
 
From what I have read about NCQ there is no benefit when it is used on a single user computer - in fact NCQ slows down the read write operation a bit in such setups. I dont know the technical reasons for this - NCQ is supposed to be benificial only when used in a Server setup. I have disabled NCQ for my HDDs.

Maybe one of the Super Guru's of TE can explain the technical reasons behind the slow down of a single user computer running NCQ. :huh:

Here is a good explaination of how NCQ works...

Seagate's Barracuda 7200.7 NCQ hard drive - The Tech Report - Page 1
 
I think things have changed now. If im multitasking (burning dvd + watching a movie + surfing the web...) that requires data from different places on the hdd, and NCQ should help in such a scenario. We are single-user but multiple-demands-on-the-hdd users, dont you think?

Reason i ask is, i want to buy a C2D mobo, and NCQ/AHCI ICH8R boards are very expensive compared to non-NCQ boards....
 
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