Adding a SATA drive to current ATA rig

[ChiSoxFan]

I just purchased a 300GB Maxtor SATA drive to add to my current 200GB standard ATA gaming rig. I've never installed a SATA drive before but hope it won't be much of an issue since it was a retail machine. I have a few questions on this drive though.

1. Is it going to be much faster than my current drive?
2. If I want to move my game files to it, can I just move the folder to the new drive and then point the shortcut to the .exe on the new drive? Would that be a good idea or is there something better I should do?
3. Anything else I should know before installing this?

 

[Bobthelost]

1. A bit, it's a newer drive, and a larger one. Both of which mean that it'll probably be a bit faster. Probably not noticable though, a defrag will make as much difference and a clean install more.

2. I don't think so no. What you should do is uninstall then reinstall the game onto the new HD, just moving it sounds like a bad plan.

3. Back everything up if you haven't done so recently.

 

[acegazda]

if your 200gb drive is an ata/100 and your sata drive is 300mb/sec, there will be a decent difference. However, the main reason to upgrade to sata is it is more efficiant data transfer. (Serial transfer as opposed to paralell transfer that uses 26 wires to transfer data vs sata using only 2 wires) Airflow is a plus too.

 

[Bobthelost]

Originally posted by: acegazda
if your 200gb drive is an ata/100 and your sata drive is 300mb/sec, there will be a decent difference. However, the main reason to upgrade to sata is it is more efficiant data transfer. (Serial transfer as opposed to paralell transfer that uses 26 wires to transfer data vs sata using only 2 wires) Airflow is a plus too.

ATA 100 means that the connection bandwidth is 100mb/s, since the HDs are going to be delivering 50-60mb/s i doubt it's really relevant increasing it to 300mb/s.