Question With SATA

[OhioDan]

This is my first post, but i have been readign this forum for a few months now, This is the best Computer info. forum ive been on.

I have a Dell 2400 and I bought a WD 400GB SATA drive by mistake and to get a RMA and send it back was goign to be over $50. so I thought i would try to hook this SATA HD up to my computer. My MOBO doesnt have a SATA connections, so I bought a PCI RAID controller card. now I dont want to RAID the drive because I only have 1 SATA drive. so I set it up as just a additional drive. Now when I copy files TO the SATA it takes only 7mins. but when I copy FROM my SATA it takes 42 mins. Now here is my question: WHY does it take so much longer to copy FROM SATA rather then TO SATA?

I did a little testing on all my drives. here are the results:
(ALL TESTING WAS DONE WITH THE SAME 4.35gb FILE)

From SATA to my External Drive (usb2 80gb) took 42 mins
From SATA to my Main HD (c: ) took 12 mins
From SATA to my DVD Burner (4x) took 40 mins
From my Main HD (c: ) to SATA took 7 mins
From my Main HD (c: ) to my External Drive (usb2 80gb) took 5 mins
From my Main HD (c: ) to my DVD Burner (4x) took 14 mins
From my External Drive (usb2 80gb) to my SATA took 7 mins
From my External Drive (usb2 80gb) to my Main HD (c: ) took 8 mins
From my External Drive (usb2 80gb) to my DVD Burner (4x) took 14 mins

so my conclusion is if I want a file off of my SATA drive and burned to a dvd it's goign to be faster by going from SATA to my (C: ) then to my dvd burner.
then to go from SATA to dvd burner. I thought SATA were supposed ot be somewhat faster, not 4x's slower. or is it something else? ANY suggestions would be helpfull.

Thanks....

[glc]

What's the brand and model of the SATA card? Are all drivers installed and is the SATA drive running in DMA mode? Have you tried putting the card into a different PCI slot?

[OhioDan]

The SATA card is a creative I/O the box doesnt have a model number, Yes, I installed the drivers, I dont know what DMA mode is so I dont know if it is or isnt DMA. It's in my only open PCI slot, but no i havent tried to put it in another slot. will that make a diffeance?

[Gizmo]

DMA = Direct Memory Access. It allows the device to bypass the CPU and go directly to memory, which in turn puts less stress on the CPU. DMA options are in the motherboard BIOS and can either be enabled there or through the OS. Everything on the motherboard has it's own unique IRQ, putting the card into a slot that's assigned the least used IRQ number will allow the card to function.

[glc]

That offbrand card may be what's hanging you up. I'm not saying that it IS, but I really prefer to use name brand stuff for things like this. It's a lot easier getting support when things don't work right.

I would have bought this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816102044

[OhioDan]

I put it in another pci slot, and still the same thing. I dont really dare mess with the BIOS cause im not that good at computers, I dont wanna mess anything up. I think GLC might be right, I only paid $30 for this. Im just glad it does work, to store my data on this huge drive.

Thanks for the help!!!!