Wierd

[metalmania31]

My win 7 pro 64bit device manager says my hdd are SCSI disks. But they're SATA's. Why is that? It's a WD 300G Velociraptor. It's running fine no issues. I just thought this was odd.

 

[bassfisher6522]

Check your bios, may have flip flopped from the upgrade/clean install.

 

[metalmania31]

That shouldn't be an issue as I already had Win XP pro installed on an older WD 150 Raptor. The newer is Win 7 and it's a clean install. Both drives say SCSI in the device manager. I didn't change in anything in the bios other than boot order when I installed Win 7.

 

[bassfisher6522]

Just curious, did you check the bios? If you don't think it's in the bios, it could possibly be a driver update for mobo hard drive controller, or the bios needing updated for the new OS on the mobo itself. It could also be a firmware issue with your hard drives. Check your mobo website for updates along with you hard drives website for any firmware updates.

 

[davehc]

I found this on the Technet forum. It was concerning a 320GB Western Digital Model Number WDC WD3200AAKS-22B3A0, and could be relevant to other WD drives?

"I contacted Cyberpower and finally found out whats up with it.
Quote:
"With regards to the hard drive, the current configuration will the be optimal one since it enables the use of NCQ for the drive. The operating system will detect and treat SATA based hard drives as SCSI devices due to the intercompatibilty of the more recent SAS standards. Any errors detected by the SMART will be shown during the POST sequence provided it is enabled in the BIOS."

I am not familiar with NCQ, but I read that it can be disabled through the Bios and/or the driver configuration.

 

[bassfisher6522]

nice find davehc.....

 

[Nibiru2012]

NCQ is short for Native Command Queing. It helps to speed up the drive and the time spent searching for files, etc. It is normally used in conjunction with AHCI or Advanced Host Controller Interface.

I definitely WOULD NOT disable NCQ at all.

From Wikipedia:
Native Command Queuing (NCQ) is a technology designed to increase performance of SATA hard disks under certain conditions by allowing the individual hard disk to internally optimize the order in which received read and write commands are executed. This can reduce the amount of unnecessary drive head movement, resulting in increased performance (and slightly decreased wear of the drive) for workloads where multiple simultaneous read/write requests are outstanding, most often occurring in server-type applications.

NCQ allows the drive itself to determine the optimal order in which to retrieve outstanding requests.
This may, as here, allow the drive to fulfill all requests in fewer rotations and thus less time.

For NCQ to be enabled, it must be supported and enabled in the SATA host bus adapter and in the hard drive itself. The appropriate driver must be loaded into the operating system to enable NCQ on the host bus adapter. Many newer chipsets support the Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI), which should allow a generic driver supplied by the operating system to control them and enable NCQ. In fact, newer mainstream Linux kernels support AHCI natively. Windows XP requires the installation of a vendor-specific driver even if AHCI is present on the host bus adapter. Windows Vista natively supports both AHCI and NCQ.

NCQ in Solid-State Drives
NCQ is also used in newer solid-state drives where the drive encounters latency on the host, rather than the other way around. For example, Intel's X25-E Extreme solid-state drive uses NCQ to ensure that the drive has commands to process while the host system is busy processing CPU tasks. [3]


NCQ and AHCI were one of the main reasons I switched to SATA disks. My Samsung F1 Enterprise Class hard drive has excellent stats using the AHCI mode.

​

 

[metalmania31]

Thanks, that's cool to know. So that would explain why it didn't show in Win XP. Since it's native to Vista I would assume so in Win 7 as well. Neat.

 

[Nibiru2012]

I'm glad I was able to help. If you need help regarding this, let me know and I'll be happy to help you out.

AHCI has to be enabled in the BIOS for the NCQ to work more efficiently. Refer to your motherboard manual if you're not sure. Plus the driver needs to be loaded for your chipset.

Even though Windows 7 will natively install an AHCI driver, loading the chipset's driver will improve performance.

I'm not sure if you're on Windows 7 32 bit or 64 bit. Go HERE for the latest nVidia nForce 650i chipset drivers.

 

[metalmania31]

I'm glad I was able to help. If you need help regarding this, let me know and I'll be happy to help you out.

AHCI has to be enabled in the BIOS for the NCQ to work more efficiently. Refer to your motherboard manual if you're not sure. Plus the driver needs to be loaded for your chipset.

Even though Windows 7 will natively install an AHCI driver, loading the chipset's driver will improve performance.

I'm not sure if you're on Windows 7 32 bit or 64 bit. Go HERE for the latest nVidia nForce 650i chipset drivers.

Thanks, I already installed the latest drivers when I installed Win 7 Pro 64bit.