ICY DOCK MB664US-1S: eSATA with a twist
by Dave Robinet on October 9, 2007 1:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Storage
Test Setup
We are utilizing an Intel QX6700 quad core CPU to ensure we are not CPU limited in our testing. A 2GB memory configuration is standard in our XP test bed as most enthusiasts are currently purchasing this amount of RAM. Our choice of high-range OCZ Reaper PC2-9200 memory offers a very wide range of memory settings with timings of 3-4-3-9 used for our benchmark results.
Our test bed now includes a water-cooled MSI 8800 GTX video card to ensure our game tests are not completely GPU bound and to reduce noise/heat levels. Our video tests are run at 1280x1024 for this article at High Quality settings. All of our tests are run in an enclosed case with a dual optical/hard drive setup to reflect a moderately loaded system platform. Windows XP SP2 is fully updated and we load a clean drive image for each system to keep driver conflicts to a minimum.
The drive is formatted before each test run and five tests are completed on each drive in order to ensure consistency in the benchmark results. The two high and low scores are removed with the remaining score representing our reported result. We utilize the Intel ICH8R SATA ports along with the latest Intel Matrix Storage driver to ensure consistency in our playback results when utilizing NCQ, TCQ, or RAID settings.
Our test drive today will be the Samsung SpinPoint T166 500GB that we recently reviewed. We implemented AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface) in the BIOS to properly test the hot swap capabilities of this drive enclosure when utilizing the eSATA interface. Without the proper matrix storage driver support and AHCI implementation, hot swapping was not possible with our test bed.
| Standard Test Bed Playback of iPEAK Trace Files and Test Application Results |
|
| Processor | Intel QX6700 - 2.66GHz Quad Core |
| Motherboard | DFI Infinity 965-S |
| RAM | 2 x 1GB OCZ Reaper PC2-9200 Settings - DDR2-800 - 3-4-3-9 |
| OS Hard Drive | 1 x Western Digital WD1500 Raptor - 150GB |
| System Platform Drivers | Intel 8.1.1.1010 Intel Matrix RAID 6.2.1.1002 |
| Video Card | 1 x MSI 8800GTX |
| Video Drivers | NVIDIA ForceWare 158.19 |
| Optical Drive | Plextor PX-760A, Plextor PX-B900A |
| Cooling | Tuniq 120 |
| Power Supply | Corsair HX620 |
| Case | Cooler Master CM Stacker 830 |
| Operating System | Windows XP Professional SP2 |
We are utilizing an Intel QX6700 quad core CPU to ensure we are not CPU limited in our testing. A 2GB memory configuration is standard in our XP test bed as most enthusiasts are currently purchasing this amount of RAM. Our choice of high-range OCZ Reaper PC2-9200 memory offers a very wide range of memory settings with timings of 3-4-3-9 used for our benchmark results.
Our test bed now includes a water-cooled MSI 8800 GTX video card to ensure our game tests are not completely GPU bound and to reduce noise/heat levels. Our video tests are run at 1280x1024 for this article at High Quality settings. All of our tests are run in an enclosed case with a dual optical/hard drive setup to reflect a moderately loaded system platform. Windows XP SP2 is fully updated and we load a clean drive image for each system to keep driver conflicts to a minimum.
The drive is formatted before each test run and five tests are completed on each drive in order to ensure consistency in the benchmark results. The two high and low scores are removed with the remaining score representing our reported result. We utilize the Intel ICH8R SATA ports along with the latest Intel Matrix Storage driver to ensure consistency in our playback results when utilizing NCQ, TCQ, or RAID settings.
Our test drive today will be the Samsung SpinPoint T166 500GB that we recently reviewed. We implemented AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface) in the BIOS to properly test the hot swap capabilities of this drive enclosure when utilizing the eSATA interface. Without the proper matrix storage driver support and AHCI implementation, hot swapping was not possible with our test bed.
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Souka - Friday, October 12, 2007 - link
Drives have two basic benchmarks... latency and throughput.comments like, "a 500gb is almost equal"..or "those raptors are not worth the cost" kinda ignore the latency part of the equation.
Yes, most 500GB drives equal, perhaps surpass, an older 150gb Raptor in some throughput benchmarks. But latency is still the raptors domain, and overal performance benifts quite a bit from this.
There are plenty of articles on such a topic...
My $.02
retrospooty - Tuesday, October 9, 2007 - link
"The fact is for the price of a 150GB raptor you can get a 500-750GB drive that performs almost as well. Now that there are better performing drives available, those raptors just are not worth the cost anymore."almost as well, yes, but the 150gb Raptor is 2 years old now, it was released on Jan 1st 2006. They are due for an update any time now (prolly Jan 1st 2008) and you can bet that a 300g (or higher) Raptor with 32mb cache and Perpendicular recording will own the market once again by a large margin.
lennylim - Tuesday, October 9, 2007 - link
I bought the MB559. The attraction to me is that I can get additional trays for $20 (expensive, but not too expensive). At $70 for one enclosure, this seems overpriced.The power connector on the bracket is very attractive to me, actually. I wish the MB559 comes with one. They had a MIR last month where you can get one free if you bought a MB559, but I bought mine too early. You can have the bracket installed on your home machine, so that you can have the power adapter in your laptop bag all the time. And reducing a wall wart is always a good idea to me. The bracket us available for purchase, but at over $20 shipped, it's too expensive for me.
ninjit - Tuesday, October 9, 2007 - link
The product info for the MB664US-1S on ICY DOCK's website touts the ability to hotswap the actual hard-drive in the enclosure.Did you test this, and/or have any comments?
FrankThoughts - Tuesday, October 9, 2007 - link
Page three says "We implemented AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface) in the BIOS to properly test the hot swap capabilities of this drive enclosure when utilizing the eSATA interface. Without the proper matrix storage driver support and AHCI implementation, hot swapping was not possible with our test bed."I would assume that means with the test chipset and those drivers installed, hotswap works. Using it with other chipsets and drivers? Sounds like something they could maybe test further on other systems.
Olaf van der Spek - Tuesday, October 9, 2007 - link
Why is power over SATA never used? Then you could stick with a single connector and not need the external power supply (except when you use USB).ninjit - Tuesday, October 9, 2007 - link
There is no power over SATA.the SATA spec designed a NEW power connector, over the old Molex one, which is inline with the data-connector allowing easy cable-less drive installations, through direct mating to backplanes, but it's still a separate power connector and needs its own cable otherwise.
eSATA (which is what's tested here with the ICY-DOCK) is just data, there is no associated external power port to go a long with it.
Olaf van der Spek - Tuesday, October 9, 2007 - link
> There is no power over SATA.Not over the SATA data cable, no.
Let's rephrase the question: why aren't SATA connectors/cables used that transport both data and power?
Souka - Friday, October 12, 2007 - link
Well, here's my thoughts why.1. The power would then have to come from the motherboard, which means more tracepaths on the circuit board and power drawn from the motherboard itself.
2. SATA cables would be bigger, and you'd have two SATA cable standards
3. Power and data on same cable for SATA might cause interference with the data trasnsfer quality.
4. Power and Data on a mass storage device hasn't been the standard in the past, and changing standards is a risk manufacturers often won't take.
My $.02