digitalFAQ.com Forum - SATA 2TB hard drive slow with IDE adapter Windows XP?

IDE can run in two modes, 8 or 16 bit mode.

In 8 bit mode each transfer takes twice as long to make up for the difference.

The mode depends to a degree on the firmware in the IDE bridge chip used.

That Adapter appears to be using a JMICRON chip, which are notorious for lowest common denominator.

They cost usually under $10 for the chip, board and all. (I've seen then for as low as $2)

The rarer.. harder to find.. use the Marvell. Startech regularly imports them. But they generally cost about $24 or higher.

They run at 16 bit and support optical drives, and have jumpers to select master or slave.

No guarantees here.. but if you tried a Startech marvel adapter.. I think you would be a lot happier with the transfer speeds.

Another separate issue is the difference between Shingle tech hard drives and CME.. which Western Digital or Seagate got "busted" for trying to pass off one as the other in NAS arrays. They claimed they were just as good a at slower performance. But.. they lost data.. so they got busted by the Chinese officals.

There are so few hard drive makers in the world anymore, sharing three factories.. China itself has stepped in and started dictating business terms to the competing brands.

But the size of the drives you quoted are far below Shingle tech.. they don't start hiding the actual technology used until you get much beyond 2 TB.

ps. downside is I think Marvel got bought or got out of the business of making their chips after JMICRON drove down the costs so much.. so not only are they rare.. but getting scarce. If you need them you probably better stock up.