[I]Consider this Phase 1, where Doris gets her oats…[/I]
As feared, my first wave of tests shows a previously-purchased, high-dollar SATAiii (6gb) cable set SUCKS. I mean, in comparison with its cost, compared to Kerry’s MONOPRICE cheapo stuff.
Test setup is a five-HDD system (all identical SATAiii drives). I’m going to copy 9.57Gb of VOB files from Drives 4 & 5 onto the other three Drives (1-2-3).
[B]LinkDepot SataIII Round 18" Angle-to-Straight for all five drives. $4.49 for one, $4.09 for 11-or-more.[/B]
These are very butch-looking - big, black round cables, and they have this cute little “SATA-3” tag on one end - they remind me of the bow-ties on Chippendale male strippers. Butch, indeed.
Using Win7-Ultimate, in a plain drag-and-drop copy process, then opening up “more details” to get a speed measurement.
Drive 4 copies to Drives 1, 2, 3 starting at [B]38Mb/s[/B] and dropping to [B]28Mb/s. [/B]
Drive 5 copies to Drives 1, 2, 3 starting at [B]38Mb/s[/B] and dropping to [B]22Mbs [/B]on the two most-filled drives. Understandable. This was also the 2nd Copy process done, so Drive 4’s COPYs added to the destination drives’ clutter.
[B]Now, for the Kerry Special… MonoPrice.COM’s ‘8788’ UVBlue Flat Cables. $0.63 for one, $0.50 for 50-or-more[/B]
Drive 4 copies to Drives 1, 2, 3 starting at [B]132Mb/s[/B], lowering to [B]118Mb/s[/B] at the halfway point, and ends between [B]98 and 88Mb/s[/B] apparently based on filled-capacity of the destination drives (most filled drives had slower transfer rates at the end).
Drive 5 repeats this, almost identically.
None of these cheapo-cable COPYs ever dropped below 88Mb/s. None of the most expensive cable COPYs ever exceeded 30Mb/s except in the opening 10% - almost a queue-up time, most likely.
[B]PROBLEMS?[/B] 1. With my research, since it’s “only one system” it would be hard for me to argue some universality of truthfulness here. But when I see “30Mb/s” transfers between two SATAiii HDDs, I’ll think “poor cable”.
- I continue to complain about Latches and SATA Pedestals (on motherboards). When a Latched Cable is stuck into a ‘lower berth’ and another Latched Cable is on top of it, the over-sized heads create a wedge force.
Plus, how do Latches disengage? “Press down.” Guess what happens when an ‘upper berth’ Latch Cable does do the lower berth’s latch?
It PRESSES DOWN. Du-uh. The SATA Pedestals are cute looking, but are a PAIN to work with, and create a Wedge-Force PLUS create a forced ‘unlatching’ pressure on the lower of two-stacked cables.
I HATE SATA PEDESTALS.
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Could Older Cables simply be ‘too used’? There is a Gaussian Effect for any electrical force passing thru cables (or any metal). But the high-priced LinkDepot Butch-Round Cables aren’t more than 60 days old on an occasionally-powered-up file-server. If these have suffered from “wear and tear”, then it’s only because they were crap to begin with.
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The MonoPrice’s are Flat Cables and thus can only be ‘bent’ up and down, whereas the Round Cables are much easier to route.
I’ll look for some of OKGear’s Round Cables (we have those in-stock as well) and I’ll try those.
- I’m just not sold on Latches. And if I have latches, then I hope they’re shiny silver so they’re easily identified as opposed to black-on-black. When someone yanks out an unlatched Latchable, they’re going to tear out HOPEFULLY only the cable’s side… not the drive’s connector, or the SATA Pedestal. Hopefully… but you know something like that’s gonna happen.
“Dear Mfr, make your latches easier to see.” Or get rid of them entirely.
[I]In Phase 2, I’ll dig out some of those ubiquitous Red Flat Cables and use those against the LinkDepot Butch-Blacks, as well as the MonoPrice Cheapos, and the latchless Silverstones ($6 for cute wire-mesh sleeving? “Are we driving thru plutonium?” - Alvy Singer in ANNIE HALL).[/I]
