GeekTech: This Hard Drive Belongs in Mensa

PC performance buffs have long measured hardware advances using a few simple metrics: Is it faster? Is it bigger? Does it have more blinky lights?

Okay, that last one may just be my personal metric. But the point is that technology has always been more complicated than that. Processors, graphics cards, memory--each one is more than just the sum of its speeds and feeds. And now there's a new technology that promises to make a hard drive's performance more than just a reflection of how fast it spins.

At Microsoft's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (known as WinHEC) in early May Seagate demonstrated its newest serial ATA hard drive, which begins shipping to retailers in a few weeks. What's interesting about the new Barracuda 7200.7 isn't its spin speed, which is a standard 7200 rotations per minute. It's not the capacity, either--a fairly pedestrian 160GB. What's exceptional about this drive is that it includes a new technology called Native Command Queuing that effectively makes the drive smarter, allowing it to perform on par with notably pricier drives that spin much faster.

In its demo, Seagate showed its $150 Barracuda 7200.7 and Western Digital's $250 Raptor WD740GD (a 74GB, 10,000-rotations-per-minute drive) running an Intel I/O benchmark called IOMeter that measured the amount of time it took each drive to transfer a 4GB file. Seagate's 7200-rpm drive with NCQ won, proving brains can win over speed. (At PC World we haven't conducted our own tests yet, but I'm hoping we can benchmark the technology within the next few weeks.)

Seagate's Barracuda 7200.7 is the first desktop hard drive to include the new NCQ technology, says Joni Clark, product marketing manager. The reason Seagate is the first out of the gate with the industry-standard technology is that it requires a native Serial ATA drive, and the Barracuda is such a drive. Most current desktop hard drives from Seagate's competitors are based on older parallel ATA drives that they transformed into Serial ATA using bridge technologies, Clark says. (Expect NCQ-equipped drives from other vendors in the near future.)

The NCQ technology, engineered by the Serial ATA II working group, basically gives the hard drive a bigger, more effective brain.

When a PC sends a command to a standard parallel or serial ATA hard drive, the drive spins up its platters and dispatches its read/write heads to retrieve the data necessary to complete the command. During normal operation, a PC sends lots of commands to a hard drive. Since the drive completes these commands in the order in which the PC sends them, its read/write heads have to zoom around the platters in a fairly haphazard way, seeking out data that resides all over the place. This takes time.

NCQ allows the drive to handle multiple outstanding commands at the same time (a feature that first appeared in SCSI 2-based drives a while back). Using an internal queue that can store up to 32 commands at once, the drive quickly reorganizes the commands so the read/write arms can go after the necessary data in a more efficient manner. The drive is even smart enough to react to new commands while it's on the way to grab a previously requested bit of data.

In addition, the technology lets the drive use direct memory access for drive-to-memory transfers that don't require the PC's intervention. Essentially the drive is smart enough to know the most efficient way to transfer the data it's gathered, minimizing wasted spins.

A bonus of all this efficiency: Seagate expects drives with NCQ to last longer than drives without it, because their moving parts simply move less day to day.

Finally, one of the best things about this technology upgrade: It's cheap. Seagate says at first it expects to charge roughly an extra $5 for its NCQ drive, but that premium won't last long because the drives themselves don't require extra hardware. In fact, it's basically a firmware upgrade.

Before you rush out and buy Seagate's affordable new drive, however, there are a few things you should know.

Ain't that always the case?

First, you can't just plug the Barracuda 7200.7 into your existing Serial ATA motherboard or PCI-based Serial ATA expansion card. It'll still run, but you won't reap the benefits of the NCQ technology. To get that, you'll need one that includes NCQ compatibility, and Seagate says you can't download a firmware fix to bring current hardware up to speed. In other words, you'll have to buy a new PCI card, or a new motherboard based on upcoming chip sets that support the updated Serial ATA standard.

Second, not all software will take advantage of NCQ, at least not at first. Many programs only issue one command at a time, awaiting the drive's response before issuing another one, which pretty much nullifies the advantages of queuing. The good news, according to Seagate, is that it's fairly easy for software developers to tweak their products to move from synchronous to asynchronous command requests. Expect this to happen over time.

Third, multithreaded PCs will net the biggest gain from NCQ. In other words, computers running Intel's Pentium 4 processors with hyperthreading should see more of a boost than machines based on chips from Advanced Micro Devices. That's because P4 machines are more likely to have multiple apps making requests of the hard drive at the same time.

And finally, there's the little matter of bragging rights. Sure, at the end of the day what most PC enthusiasts want is the best performance they can get. But, you have to admit, a 10,000 rpm drive just, well, sounds cooler.

As in life, I guess sometimes you just have to decide what matters more when it comes to choosing a hard drive: being cool or being smart. Or maybe the smart move would be to wait for a 10,000-rpm drive with NCQ. Now that would be cool.

Merom Chaodidianyaban the outstanding use

In addition Chaodidianyaban Socket P will be in the third quarter of 2007 version of Core 2 Duo U7500. But there is no change in the specifications, simply change the socket. It said PC industry, 802.11N, and the growing popularity of Wi-Fi, the market for UMPC (Ultra Moblie PC), a large increase in demand, This low-voltage and the need to increase Chaodidianyaban. In addition, Intel is also bent on advancing Embedded IA market. Merom Chaodidianyaban the outstanding use of low voltage and power efficiency than with VIA fight over the carcass market.

Socket M processor interface used the same

Chaodidianyaban and will be until the second quarter of 2007 alone, Core 2 Duo U7500 model, the frequency of core 1.06Ghz. L2 Cache screen declining capacity to be only 2MB, frequentness rate has been reduced to 533MHz FSB. Socket M processor interface used the same platform to support Napa Refresh. 11W TDP is tentatively scheduled for the highest price yet. Low voltage and ultra low voltage Merom specifications According to the latest Intel specifications. They will be released in the second quarter of 2007 Santa Rosa platform. As M processor interface from Socket to Socket P, So the current Socket M version of Merom will not be able to transition to Santa Rosa platform. Socket P and Intel will also introduce a version of Core 2 Duo L7300 and L7500 Core 2 Duo to replace the old. frequentness enjoy and will be upgraded to 800MHz, and 1.6GHz frequency of 1.4 GHz wavelength for the other. 4MB L2 Cache capacity to maintain capacity.

Merom exposed low-voltage version of the specifications listed 07 January

According to Taiwan's PC industry, Intel will be formally announced in January 2007 low-voltage mobile processor Merom core, including Core 2 Duo Core 2 Duo L7200 and L7400. Chaodidianyaban Merom and will have to wait until the second quarter of 2007 will be listed. Food has begun to conventional version of Merom It said PC industry. Core 2 Duo L7200 and L7400 for the 1.33GHz and 1.5GHz frequency. frequentness have 4MB L2 cache and 667MHz FSB using Socket M processor interface Refresh Napa platform supports a maximum TDP of 17W only about half the normal version. priced at $ 1,000 each were $ 284 U.S. dollars and 316 U.S. dollars.

Core 2 Duo Merom core of the first half of next year

Two core delivery of the first two Celeron M 520 and No. 530, respectively. 65nm production process used, based on the Merom core, M Socket Interface. frequency of 1.60GHz and 1.73GHz, 1MB L2 Cache, 533MHz front bus. The mix of new mobile chipset 943GML. To the third quarter of next year, will be the introduction of new dual core Intel Celeron M still based on the Merom core, but P use Socket Interface. Core 2 Duo Merom core of the first half of next year will also adopt this interface. and appeared in the Santa Rosa platform. Celeron M 520 at 134 U.S. dollars and 530 price unknown.

Two fourth quarter of a small amount of nuclear delivery Celeron M

According to previous information, in the first quarter of next year, Intel will release dual core Celeron M But DigiTimes learned This new Celeron M in the fourth quarter of this year will start small quantity shipped.Mobile dual core AMD Sempron Celeron M from view. If next year, so there is ample time to deal with AMD, and now, although it was unclear the volume of concrete. However, the limited time left for AMD.

Use Intel's flagship 955X chipset

GA-8I955X Royal Main Board You may have been just too much of the Pentium D 840 processor see their written reports. and we have not made a detailed tests, the dual-core processors face the highest level of performance in the end? 955X chip Main Board bring to us what kind of change? We got the core of the current Pentium-D 840 processor, Then the current flagship chipset Intel 955X match Jijia GA-8I955X Royal Main Board Main Board, the climax of Intel's most powerful processor and the main board there will be a joint performance of what performance? We are looking forward to and everyone else is, let us together open the answer to this riddle.