Putting second internal drive into dell xps8300

LillySV

Hi Folks,

Looking for advice. I ordered myself a 3tb seagate internal hard drive (which arrived without any sata data cable) and am now going about putting it into my pc...i see there is 4 sata connections, sata 0, sata 1, sata 2 and sata 3. The dvd rom is connected to the sata 0 connection, the master drive is connected to the sata 1 drive. I heard that the sata 0 and sata 1 connections on the xps8300 have a transfer rate speed up to 6gb/s whereas the sata 2 and sata 3 have a transfer rate of 3gb/s. the seagate drive ive just bought to be used as a slave(storage) drive has a transfer rate of 6gb/s so was wondering if i could/should swap the connections and plug the new drive into sata 0 and put the dvd rom into sata 2 connection? would this create any issues? im also assuming the dvd rom transfer rates are slower than 3gb/s ??

on a differnt topic, i bought a dynamode sata 45cm data cable in pc world tonite...i assume that handles speeds of over 6gb/s??? there no details of speeds on the cable

yoyo

LillySV wrote: »

Hi Folks,

Looking for advice. I ordered myself a 3tb seagate internal hard drive (which arrived without any sata data cable) and am now going about putting it into my pc...i see there is 4 sata connections, sata 0, sata 1, sata 2 and sata 3. The dvd rom is connected to the sata 0 connection, the master drive is connected to the sata 1 drive. I heard that the sata 0 and sata 1 connections on the xps8300 have a transfer rate speed up to 6gb/s whereas the sata 2 and sata 3 have a transfer rate of 3gb/s. the seagate drive ive just bought to be used as a slave(storage) drive has a transfer rate of 6gb/s so was wondering if i could/should swap the connections and plug the new drive into sata 0 and put the dvd rom into sata 2 connection? would this create any issues? im also assuming the dvd rom transfer rates are slower than 3gb/s ??

on a differnt topic, i bought a dynamode sata 45cm data cable in pc world tonite...i assume that handles speeds of over 6gb/s??? there no details of speeds on the cable

0-3 is just the numbering for the SATA ports. A quick Google and I found this:

(SATA 0, SATA 1) are rated for 6 GB/s transfer rate. The second two SATA ports (SATA 2, SATA 3) are rated at 3 GB/s.

Source.
Once your cable is SATA3 certified you are good to go, in all honesty though for mechanical drives there probably won't be much difference, SSd would be though

Nick

LillySV

yoyo wrote: »

0-3 is just the numbering for the SATA ports. A quick Google and I found this:

Source.
Once your cable is SATA3 certified you are good to go, in all honesty though for mechanical drives there probably won't be much difference, SSd would be though

Nick

Hi Nick, so would i be right in saying then that there would be no point in leaving the dvd rom connected to the faster sata 0 drive as it wouldnt benefit from this faster speed?i should plug the new internal drive into the sata 0 drive instead?

as reagrds the cable i got,theres no mention of certification on it but im sure its probably ok

degsie

The dvd drive is in sata 0 so as the bios will boot from it first, if it contains bootable media. So you can change the boot order in bios if you decide to move the dvd drive and still want it to be checked as the first bootable drive.

yoyo

LillySV wrote: »

Hi Nick, so would i be right in saying then that there would be no point in leaving the dvd rom connected to the faster sata 0 drive as it wouldnt benefit from this faster speed?i should plug the new internal drive into the sata 0 drive instead?

as reagrds the cable i got,theres no mention of certification on it but im sure its probably ok

If it's not an SSD it should be fine, mechanical drives are slow enough. Especially the modern "green" drives which are common now and pretty slow. Some exceptions but most are 5400RPM and below in some cases

Nick

LillySV

http://www.komplett.ie/product/zkb-01opsl/20098837/seagate-barracuda-3tb/details.aspx

thats the new drive there, as ya can see, its 7200rpm and 6gb transfer rate so no point wasting the faster 6gb drive by connecting it to sata 2 or sata 3 i assume? disconnect the dvd rom and connect that to the sata 2 connection, changin the boot up in bios, and meanwhile connecting the new drive to sata 0 to avail of the faster 6gb/s connection speed..
thats the best option/arrangement i assume..anything else im missing???
( I am amateurish at this so my ignorance is bliss!!:D)

yoyo

LillySV wrote: »

http://www.komplett.ie/product/zkb-01opsl/20098837/seagate-barracuda-3tb/details.aspx

thats the new drive there, as ya can see, its 7200rpm and 6gb transfer rate so no point wasting the faster 6gb drive by connecting it to sata 2 or sata 3 i assume? disconnect the dvd rom and connect that to the sata 2 connection, changin the boot up in bios, and meanwhile connecting the new drive to sata 0 to avail of the faster 6gb/s connection speed..
thats the best option/arrangement i assume..anything else im missing???
( I am amateurish at this so my ignorance is bliss!!:D)

Go for it! I'd use either port 0 or 1 as in the Dell thread I linked to above, trusting the information is correct. You may need to adjust the boot sequence in the bios if doing so stops Windows from booting, put the hard disk with the OS on it as first priority..

Nick

LillySV

swapped the connection with the dvd drive and no probs..dont know if ill notice the difference in reality but the new drive seems fast!:D

thanks