Why Can't I Access My SATA Drive Settings?

[johnnyMon]

I'm not getting the performance I expected from my new 150GB Raptor. Sandra2005 reports the drive at 73mb/s, which it charts comparatively low. Sandra suggests that acoustic management is on, and says this could hurt its performance. Also, I'd like to turn off NCQ, as the StorageReview.com test of this drive shows lower single-user perf with that feature on.

 

However, when I look for the control, I can't find it. In Device Manager, I have 9 IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers: 3 each of Primary IDE Channel, Secondary IDE Channel, and Standard Dual Channel PCI. But none relating to my SATA controller. I can't find that controller anywhere in Device Manager.

 

When I installed my nvidia 6.70 driver, I said "no" to the option of installing the IDE SW driver. Is this the driver which will give me access to my SATA drive settings?

 

Any other suggestions for improving my drive performance (other than RAID)? Thanks for any help!

[johnnyMon]

After further research, I'm pretty sure I don't see the controller because I didn't install the Nvidia IDE SW driver (as per the recommendation on this forum if you're not running RAID, which I'm not). But this means Windows sees the SATA drive as a PATA drive and I don't have access to the controls.

 

I've read reports of people having data corruption with the IDE SW driver, and others saying the current version works fine for them. I've put a lot of work into this system so far, software-wise, and while I can back up my disk, I really don't want to have to start from scratch if something goes wrong.

 

At the same time, my system doesn't feel nearly as fast as it should given my hardware, and I think the problem is in my HD subsystem. I've read here that the Sil SATA controller is not fast. If that's the controller on my Ultra-D, and if this is true, I'll be really bummed. I could have saved big $$$ by not buying the Raptor and my other SATA drives if IDE drives would be faster!

 

EDITED TO ADD: I just read the RAID Benchmark thread. I wish I'd seen it before I bought my system. One of the recent posters is using 2x80GB Hitachi drives that cost $50 each on NewEgg, and his scores are 47% higher than mine. I could have saved $200 and gotten 47% higher performance! Short of getting another drive, which I can't buy right now, is there anything I can do to increase my performance?