NCQ is designed to improve performance and reliability as the
transactional workload increases - When your application sends multiple commands
to your drive, your drive can optimize the completion of these commands to
reduce mechanical workload and improve performance.
NCQ works in all systems supporting SATA NCQ from desktop
PCs, workstations; digital media content servers, entry servers to high
performance PCs and mobile/notebook systems
Devices that support NCQ are 100% backward compatible with
non-NCQ supporting systems
NCQ allows the device to reorder commands for more efficient
data transfers
The hard drive on the left, with NCQ, can execute four commands (A, B, C, and D) with one and a quarter complete rotations due to proper ordering of the operations. The hard drive on the right, without NCQ, requires two and three quarters complete rotations to execute the same four commands (A, B, C, and D) as a result of poor ordered operations.
The results of NCQ are higher performance in heavy transactional
workloads usually found in high performance workstations, network servers,
multi-media servers and editing workstations. But NCQ can also improve your
overall system performance from booting your system to file copying.
NCQ is designed into the Serial ATA interface but not all solutions have integrated it. To take advantage of Native Command Queuing it is necessary that both the host controller/chipset and hard drive support the feature. Make sure you ask for a SATA product that supports NCQ.
More information on NCQ can be found by reading the following White Paper:
System Configuration for NCQ PC
Microsoft Windows XP Professional, Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600 INTEL D925XCV, Processor 4 Intel 2800 Mhz, BIOS Version/Date Intel Corp.
CV92510A.86A.0316.2004.0929.1610, 9/29/2004 SMBIOS Version 2.3, Boot Device: Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 PATA 160GB, RAM Kingston/vr (KVR533D2N4K2/512) 1,024.00 MB / 4 sticks of 256K memory.
Test drives: Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 with NCQ and Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 without NCQ.
System Configuration for non-NCQ PC
Microsoft Windows XP Professional Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600 INTEL D865GBF, Processor Intel 2793 Mhz, BIOS Version/Date Intel Corp.
BF86510A.86A.0046.P10.0309241107, 9/24/2003 SMBIOS Version 2.3, Boot Device: Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 PATA 160GB, RAM
Elixir1,024 MB/4 sticks of 256 DDR-400MHz CL2.5, Test drives: Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 with NCQ and Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 without NCQ
