Testing

The Test system will be:-

AthlonXP 2500+ @ 2.26gig (11x205) (Supplied by Overclock), MSI K7N2 Delta-ILSR, WindowsXP (SP1 and all other updates), 1x 60gig IBM Deskstar 60GXP (using RocketRAID 100 Adaptor), Highpoint RocketRAID 1520 RAID Card

File copy of a 724mb Disk Image
File copy of 26 mp3's, 120mb
Timed System Bootup

For the IDE test, the drive was connected up with a standard 80 pin ribbon cable to IDE 1 of my MSI K7N2 Delta-ILSR motherboard, with only the 60 gig drive on that cable. For the SATA test, we used the Highpoint RocketRAID 1520 RAID Card.

HD Tach

provides insight into the read capabilities of your drives presenting the information in a nice graphical format.

Left to right, Onboard IDE, Highpoint SATA with RocketHEAD 100

As we hoped for there is virtually no difference between the IDE results and the SATA results. Obviously a boost from the SATA would have been nice but it wasn't something I expected. We can see that using the SATA Header does provide less CPU Utilization which can only be a good thing but honestly, you probably wont be missing the extra cycles in todays machine's.

SiSoft Sandra File System Benchmark

provides a drive index score after testing the speed across the platters of your drive. Like HD Tach it is another synthetic benchmark but it does provide a nice way of performing easy comparisons between systems.

Higher is better, measured in kbp/s

Like HD Tach, the scores are similar and again this is a good thing. The SATA interface does gain a slight lead but like the CPU Utilization it isn't going to be noticeable in the real world.

File Copy 1 - 742MB Disk Image

I imaged the second disk of Soldier Of Fortune 2, copied the image to the drive/s attached to the controller and proceeded to time how long it would take to copy that image from one location to another on the same partition after clearing the cache.

Lower is better, measured in seconds

File Copy 2 - 120MB, 26 mp3's

Copying lots of smaller files can also give as an idea of the writing capabilities when smaller files are concerned.

Lower is better, measured in seconds

The File copy scenario's are here to demonstrate real world information on the write capabilities. To sound like a broken record, The SATA interface with the RocketRAID Adaptor produces a barely distinguishable gain on the IDE interface, but it isn't something you will notice

Timed System Bootup

With a clean copy of WindowsXP installed onto the drives, I proceded to time how long it would take from the end of POST to get to the Windows Login screen. This kind of test shows us a bit of the reading capabilities.

Lower is better, measured in seconds

Like the File Copy tests, the Timed Bootup produces similar scores

Final Words

Looking at the numbers from the graphs we can determine that there isn't going to be a difference in speed from using these adaptors, so what's the point? Well for one thing, using one of these adaptors with a drive can free up a channel on your standard IDE header, giving you a speed boost inherent from using one drive only per channel. It could also be used to allow you to add more drives via the SATA headers without having to compromise or replace any of your current drives running on the IDE headers. And also don't forget the size of the SATA Data cables, these things are thin and flat, so make for easy routing/tidying in a case and are great for your airflow. Are they worth the money? It would really depend on what other means you had in mind to perhaps get some more storage. You could obviously buy a bigger drive, and swap it for a current one, or use an existing drive you want to add to your system via an IDE Raid card such as the Highpoint 404 card. But if you just want cheap and simple, the RocketHEAD 100 will accommodate you. Thanks go to for supplying the RocketHEAD 100 for review, and you can pick these adaptors up from our friends at .

Pros
Small
Simple
Quick
Tidy
No performance loss
Allow you to use current drives with SATA headers

Cons
Could be considered expensive by some

Bottom Line

You need to ask yourself why you want these adaptors and what your options are, but if you want to utilize your SATA headers with current PATA drives, then the RocketHEAD 100 will accommodate with no loss of performance. If you got any comments, be sure to hit us up in our forums.

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