Any issues w/ New HDD and 7 yo mobo? SATA II vs III? Intel v Marvell 88SE9172 chipset?

kindasmart

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Is there anything to be concerned about buying new HDDs and installing them on a 7+ year old mobo? Honestly haven't been keeping up on hardware the last half dozen years.

1) Is 512 byte vs 4k sectors an issue?
2) Using an intel SATA II port instead of III port? Board has 2 intel SATA III ports with SSD boot drive on one port?
3) Reliability issue(s) if I use the Marvell 88SE9172 I/O chip which has 2 SATA III ports?
4) Win 7 x64 de-activation issue with 2 replacement HDD installed, boot SSD will remain?

My rig in the sig. I'm going to swap out the 1 & 2 TB drives with 8 TB drives. I don't want or need to go over 8 TB as I have two 8 TB WD easystore external units and that makes my OCD happy.

Probably pick something up from this Anandtech chart.

My Mobo: Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD4H.

Any general recommendations regarding my HDD purchase? Any gotchas? Not looking for absolutely lowest cost. After compatibility; reliability, reliability, and reliability are my three main wants. Followed by speed, cost, sound and heat.
 
I run my storage server with many drives off an Asus Z77.

1) only might be a problem in raid, but you want to match drives there, anyway.

2) only limits max speed if the drive is an SSD

3) those add on chips were garbage. Avoid it.

4) never had a problem, and you can always call up the phone number they give you, say the license hasn't been used, and they'll give you the OK.

As for recommendations on drives, for best reliability look at the enterprise offerings, but they will cost you. I like the WD Gold and Red Pro drives, but everyone has an opinion that differs. Avoid SMR drives.
 
4) lic is tied to major hardware such as the motherboard. I've never had adding or removing drives effect Win registration.
 
Not sure if you are using it as a boot drive or not - have you tried to initialize it on another system and put a file system on it, then plug it back in?

If it you are trying to boot to it, the drive needs to be setup as GPT disk and Using GPT boot disk on 7 can be done but it can be tricky without a UEFI boot options (sorry been a while - I think it's due to lack of UEFI boot options on older boards).
 
Thxs for replies so far.

Not sure if you are using it as a boot drive or not - have you tried to initialize it on another system and put a file system on it, then plug it back in?

If it you are trying to boot to it, the drive needs to be setup as GPT disk and Using GPT boot disk on 7 can be done but it can be tricky without a UEFI boot options (sorry been a while - I think it's due to lack of UEFI boot options on older boards).
Was your reply meant for another thread? I haven't bought or attempted to install any new HDD yet.

The boot drive will remain the same; Samsung 840 pro 256 GB on the primary intel SATA III port. I will simply be replacing the 1 & 2 TB data drives.
 
Thxs for replies so far.


Was your reply meant for another thread? I haven't bought or attempted to install any new HDD yet.

The boot drive will remain the same; Samsung 840 pro 256 GB on the primary intel SATA III port. I will simply be replacing the 1 & 2 TB data drives.
No sorry. I misunderstood the thread. I thought you had bought one already and were having issues with it.
 
Running a SATA III SSD on a SATA II port is fine. For day to day stuff 260MBps with low latency is still light years ahead of running spinning rust.
 
Running a SATA III SSD on a SATA II port is fine. For day to day stuff 260MBps with low latency is still light years ahead of running spinning rust.
I figured as much regarding the speed of a SATA II vs III port for a SSD drive. I'm not moving/changing my SSD drive off the intel SATA III port however. My only concern is/was compatibility issues (aka: sector size, protocols, BIOS support, etc) in running a modern 8 TB SATA III HDD, on a 7 year old intel SATA II port/motherboard.
 
I still haven't got this figured out completely. I'm hung up on the 512n vs 512e vs 4KN. Again ANY help greatly appreciated.

1) 512n is most "compatible" with older hardware but a drive over 2 TB can't be formatted MBR and bootable? But GPT OK?!?!?
2) 512e is 4k physical, 512 logical to O/S? Potentially slower due to emulation? Win 7x64 support? Bootable and/or GPT?
3) 4KN future but likely not compatible with older 7+ year old UFEI mobo?

If I buy from Newegg I'd buy something that is sold and shipped by Newegg not a 3rd party. I don't shop Amazon. I'm willing to spend a premium for a NAS or enterprise drive for reliability sake even if drive won't be installed in a NAS. Suggestions from this Newegg list. 8TB, 7200 rpm, 6 Gb SATA, NEW. Cross referencing this Anandtech chart. {the second to last chart on page, "Hard Drive Families - Metrics of Interest"} 2,500,000 MTBF more reliable than 600,000 MTBF? 2 v 5 year warranty? etc. Thanks.

Edit: The two drives would be installed as NON-Bootable partitions. One on the Intel SATA III port and one on an Intel SATA II port. Don't care about any loss of potential speed on SATA II port. Only concern is compatibility and reliability.
 
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This kind of covers all three questions: For 512n/512e/4kn, it's not as much a hardware problem as a software one. Windows 7 was never updated to support 4kn drives. It will however work just fine with 512e, which most new (large) drives are, anyway. Some specialty OS's can't do 512e and so 512n is still around for some enterprise manufacturers. 2TB is a limitation of MBR (even with 4kn as there can be serious problems), but GPT is bootable in Win 7 x64 as long as you have UEFI (and you do).

In practice, you really aren't going to notice any speed difference, all the drives are rated exactly the same.

Higher MTBF and lower error rate (10e15) generally indicate a more reliable drive, or one more resistant to errors and failures. I always like longer warranties, though it doesn't mean the company is going to get you your data back, just a fresh drive.

From your list I'd go with either the Seagate Exos (the ST8000NM000A model; the 002 is 4kn) or WD Gold.
 
This kind of covers all three questions: For 512n/512e/4kn, it's not as much a hardware problem as a software one. Windows 7 was never updated to support 4kn drives. It will however work just fine with 512e, which most new (large) drives are, anyway. Some specialty OS's can't do 512e and so 512n is still around for some enterprise manufacturers. 2TB is a limitation of MBR (even with 4kn as there can be serious problems), but GPT is bootable in Win 7 x64 as long as you have UEFI (and you do).

In practice, you really aren't going to notice any speed difference, all the drives are rated exactly the same.

Higher MTBF and lower error rate (10e15) generally indicate a more reliable drive, or one more resistant to errors and failures. I always like longer warranties, though it doesn't mean the company is going to get you your data back, just a fresh drive.

From your list I'd go with either the Seagate Exos (the ST8000NM000A model; the 002 is 4kn) or WD Gold.
Thanks for the concise answers to my questions.
 
I pulled the trigger and got this 8 TB Seagate. ST8000NM000A 8TB 7200 RPM. $233.99 + $19.89 (tax) + (free shipping) = $253.88. Yeah, yeah, I probably overpaid, yada, yada, yada. Don't care all that much. I should get the drive just before Christmas.

But since the price is a bit more than I had planned on spending I've decided to change my plans a bit. Instead of replacing my 1 and 2 TB drives, I simply going to just replace the FULL 1 TB drive right now, and simply move about 900 GB off the 2 TB drive leaving it about half full. Then in the future replace the 2 TB drive.

I'll let you know once I get the drive up and running and/or how I screwed something up.

ST8000NM000A - 512e_4KN - SATA.JPG
 
I'll go ahead and update this thread as things worked out pretty well. In fact this has probably been the absolutely easiest and most problem free upgrade I ever did to any computer I've ever owned. Pics at bottom of post.

I took off both sides of the case each held on by two thumb screws. As you can see from the pics both the front and back of the SSD/HDD tray is easily accessible. I unplugged both power and data SATA cables and slide the 1 TB HD out, unscrewed it from the caddy and installed the new 8 TB drive in the caddy. Slid the caddy back into the case and plugged in the two cables. DONE. Less than 5 minutes for physical install.

Turned on computer and dropped into the BIOS. The 8 TB HDD was correctly identified in the BIOS. Exit BIOS and boot into Win7. Load explorer and see C: 256 GB SSD, boot and E: 2 TB HDD, second HDD (installed after pic originally taken). The missing D: drive in explorer was the old 1 TB that was removed.

I googled "how to format HDD" to remind myself of the program used to initialize a new HDD. I ran DISKMGMT.MSC and I actually figured out what to do all by myself. I simply did this. At some point Windows installed a driver and I was good to go.

Thanks again for all the help answering my questions.
case_front.jpg

case_rear.jpg

HDD.jpg

ready.jpg
 
I'll go ahead and update this thread as things worked out pretty well. In fact this has probably been the absolutely easiest and most problem free upgrade I ever did to any computer I've ever owned. Pics at bottom of post.

I took off both sides of the case each held on by two thumb screws. As you can see from the pics both the front and back of the SSD/HDD tray is easily accessible. I unplugged both power and data SATA cables and slide the 1 TB HD out, unscrewed it from the caddy and installed the new 8 TB drive in the caddy. Slid the caddy back into the case and plugged in the two cables. DONE. Less than 5 minutes for physical install.

Turned on computer and dropped into the BIOS. The 8 TB HDD was correctly identified in the BIOS. Exit BIOS and boot into Win7. Load explorer and see C: 256 GB SSD, boot and E: 2 TB HDD, second HDD (installed after pic originally taken). The missing D: drive in explorer was the old 1 TB that was removed.

I googled "how to format HDD" to remind myself of the program used to initialize a new HDD. I ran DISKMGMT.MSC and I actually figured out what to do all by myself. I simply did this. At some point Windows installed a driver and I was good to go.

Thanks again for all the help answering my questions.
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That's awesome! Glad everything worked out so perfectly! :)
 
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