Added New Fan to my PC/small issue?

Johanson3246 · Jan 4, 2022

Hello again. I hope I am not getting on your nerves. You have lots of knowledge and I am just learning the basics. I do not want you to think that I am taking advantage of your kind support, because that is not true. But if possible and your time allows, I would have two more questions (If I may).

I recently installed a new hard drive, WD Black 1 TB Performance Mechanical Drive. I noticed dramatic spikes in SMART values in item 3 Spin up times as after each time I turned the PC on, the numbers just kept going up. Reboots never affected the spin up time, just a shot down-restart. I switched the cable from the drive to a different port on motherboard, there are 4 SATA ports. By default port 0 was for hard drive and port 1 for optical DVD. I put the hard drive to port 2 and cable from optical to port 3 so the hard drive boots first. After doing so, I noticed in SMART values the numbers settled down and so I assume it took less time for the drive to spin up to 7200. Do you think it is safe switching ports on the motherboard from default to another port? After all, all SATA values on thoseports are the same. BIOS has no option to make changes, but after reboot it triggers/adjusts to new settings. Also, I never use more than 200GB of hard drive's space, do you think it is wise to have a 1tb drive or would it be better for hard drive to be only 500GB in size. I am thinking of HDD's health in a long run.

My second question has to do with the DMA mode. I noticed that this is disabled in Windows settings, but feel uneasy to turn it on. In Devise Manager there is the Standard SATA AHCI Controller from Microsoft with no configurations. I read somewhere that NTFS does not support DMA and that having DMA turned on, improves the hard drives performance as it unloads the stress put on CPU. Attached is a screenshot from WD Dashboard of the current settings. Do you think risking turning it on would make any difference? I mean PC runs fine and fast, I am just curious what DMA stands for and if it benefits the Hard Drive's health in a long run to have it turned on.

Thanks a lot in advance!

I do appreciate it.

Johan

Digerati · Jan 4, 2022

Johanson3246 said:
Hello again. I hope I am not getting on your nerves. You have lots of knowledge and I am just learning the basics. I do not want you to think that I am taking advantage of your kind support, because that is not true. But if possible and your time allows, I would have two more questions (If I may).

This site and the folks here helping are here so you can take advantage of our experiences and expertise. That's what tech support forums are all about.

No it does not hurt to put the drive on different ports. You say there is no option to make changes in the BIOS. Not sure what you mean there. But there should be an option in the BIOS to change the boot order. This is to ensure the correct drive is touched first. If you are booting to the correct drive, then no problem.

If you never use more than 200GB, the only thing you are hurting by getting a 1TB or 500GB is, maybe, your wallet.

Johanson3246 said:
My second question has to do with the DMA mode.

Actually, that's your third - or maybe fourth!

Johanson3246 said:
I noticed that this is disabled in Windows settings, but feel uneasy to turn it on.

Umm, I think WD Dashboard is for SSDs.

By default, DMA on HDs should already be enabled. Not sure what the none means but the other values suggest it is enable.

Bottom line, is you system working? If it ain't broke, don't fix it! Windows really does know what it is doing.

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Added New Fan to my PC/small issue?

Johanson3246

Member

Digerati

Moderator
Hardware Expert
Microsoft MVP (Ret.)

Added New Fan to my PC/small issue?

Johanson3246

Member

Digerati

ModeratorHardware ExpertMicrosoft MVP (Ret.)

Moderator
Hardware Expert
Microsoft MVP (Ret.)