Will an ATA/66 controller run a Seagate Barracuda ATA/66 drive faster than an ATA/33 controller?

The G3 Yosemite and G4 Yikes come with built-in ATA/33 controllers. The Sawtooth, on the other hand, sports a built-in ATA/66 controller. Will adding an ATA/66 controller enhance the G4 Yikes? Here's the test results rounded to the nearest whole MB/sec:  

 

 

 

 

Answer:
The ATA/66 controller tested produced no faster times than the ATA/33 controller. More importantly, the same Seagate Barracuda went no faster on the G4/400 Sawtooth with built-in ATA/66 controller than it did on the G4/400 Yikes using the built-in ATA/33 controller.

This leads me to believe what was said by a long time industry observer: "The current crop of Ultra ATA drives are running as fast as they can. A faster controller won't help."

FLASH. There's now a faster drive that takes advantage of the Ultra ATA/66 controller. It's the IBM 75GXP.

Reader questions:
Did you use 80 conductor cables (designed for ATA/66)? Yes

Does the drive/card "know" to run in ATA/66 mode? If the correct cable is present, the firmware detects which cable is being used and automatically adjusts the speed accordingly.

Where do I get an ATA/66 controller for the Mac? It was a pre-release of the UltraTek/66 from VST Technology. It's now a "real" product and available for as little as $155 from Buy.Com.

Doesn't the Seagate Barracuda have to be "told" to run in ATA/66 mode? Since completing the test, I found out it needs to be "told" to run in ATA/66 mode using a utility from Seagate. Here's the catch: the utility only runs on Windows OS. So I installed the drive in a PC, ran the utility to modify the firmware, stuck it back in the Mac, same result. So much for that theory.

 

Test Configurations & Procedures

• The Seagate Barracuda 20 gig 7200 RPM ATA/66 (ST320430A) was tested on a G4/400 Sawtooth using the built-in ATA/66 inteface, and on a G4/400 Yikes using both the internal ATA/33 interface and the new VST UltraTek/66 (PCI) controller.
• For the DUPLICATE THREE PHOTOS test, I copied a 27MB Adobe Photoshop document onto each drive and made two copies. Then I timed how long it took to duplicate the three 27MB docs on the same drive. Finally I calculated megabytes per second by with the formula: folder size * 2 / seconds.
• For the DUPLICATE 91MB FOLDER test, I copied the Unreal Tournament Demo folder containing 202 documents onto each drive. Then I timed how long it took to duplicate it on the same drive. Finally I calculated megabytes per second by with the formula: folder size * 2 / seconds.
• The ATTO disk benchmark was run using Express-Pro Tools 2.3 benchmark test with 8MB maximum file size and system disk cache disabled. Sustained Rate is displayed in the charts. Peak rates can be impressive but do not reflect typical drive performance.