Advantages of SATA over PATA hard drives?

[JEDI]

PATA hard drives are cheaper. (I got a 200gig pata from Stapes for $19 during Xmas.)

Sata is faster?
Sata can operate at a theorectical speed of 2.4Gbits/sec where as PATA can do 1Gbits/sec. but can the hard drive physically transfer that much data?

What are the real world rates of SATA and PATA hard drives?

And what happens if i put 2 sata and 2 pata hard drives in a motherboard that can accept both formats?

Thx

 

[SparkyJJO]

The performance between an IDE drive and SATA drive isn't a big one at this point for sustained transfer, but SATA has the advantage of a higher burst rate plus a few other minor things that I can't think of at the moment. Others will probably know more.

The biggest nice thing about them though in my opinion is not having those huge ugly data cables Downside is these SATA cables can be really stiff sometimes, and only connecting to that thin connector makes me wonder about the cable damaging the connector on the drive.



....keeps sig comments to self

 

[jkresh]

Sata cables are thiner so they allow for better airflow, sata drives also tend to be faster (didn't use to be, but there really haven't been any new pata drives in a while and drives are constantly getting faster (albeit at a slower pace then anything else in the pc)), newer sata cables/drives are reinforced around the connector earlier drives were fairly easy to break if you applied to much pressure as the connector is so thin.

 

[Chapbass]

dont 100% quote me on this...but isnt sata hot swappable? did a quick search and the general consensus is yes (but there seems to be a lot of confusion...) but i personally would still get a queesy feeling in my stomach doing a hot swap


:\

 

[Midnight Rambler]

Also, to combat the fragility of the SATA cable connection to the drive, I always use a Western Dig SecureConnect cable. They cost about $8-10 but are worth it IMHO. Obviously they're made for WD drives but IIRC they also fit Seagates ...

 

[Roguestar]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SATA

Its theoretical max speed is surely 3.0Gb/s? And it has nifty (but not so commonly used) features such as hot-plugging, and can be used as an external interface (much, much better than USB for external hard drives).


Chapbass: Yup, you're right, but only if properly set up and powered. Better for front-removable drive bays .

 

[corkyg]

Every response above has a good and valid reason. PATA drives are now cheaper because they are obsolescent (Not obsolete, but moving in that direction.) A lot of retailers are getting rid of their stocks. Many new laptops now come with SATA drives.

"And what happens if i put 2 sata and 2 pata hard drives in a motherboard that can accept both formats?"

All of them will work - been there and done that.

 

[Bradtechonline]

SATA drives have hotswap capabilities. No more Master/Slave settings.

 

[fire400]

Starcraft install:
1 minute on IDE
30 seconds on SATA
7 seconds on SCSI speed RAID

software benchmarks though, real world install from a CDROM drive might be different, lol, but you get the idea

 

[Tyhr]

Pro SATA:
better cabling
no master/slave jumper question
my motherboard has 8 SATA ports

Pro IDE:
$20 for 200GB??? I'd buy $200 worth and have a giant RAID fully redundant with backup!

Con IDE:
My motherboard only has 2 IDE ports - there goes my whole RAID plan.
I don't see that low of price where I live, otherwise I'd be looking into a PCI IDE card.

This is kind of the same logic with DDR vs DDR2. There's little to no performance difference between the 2 at the same speeds. It seems to be more of an excuse to money grab us by forcing us to update more components. (Yes, there are faster DDR2 mems available, etc - but if you're not oc'ing, benchmarks have shown little benefit).

Having said all that, I'm running DDR2 and SATA (with both IDE ports used).

 

[acole1]

Originally posted by: Tyhr
Pro SATA:
better cabling
no master/slave jumper question
my motherboard has 8 SATA ports

Pro IDE:
$20 for 200GB??? I'd buy $200 worth and have a giant RAID fully redundant with backup!

Con IDE:
My motherboard only has 2 IDE ports - there goes my whole RAID plan.
I don't see that low of price where I live, otherwise I'd be looking into a PCI IDE card.

This is kind of the same logic with DDR vs DDR2. There's little to no performance difference between the 2 at the same speeds. It seems to be more of an excuse to money grab us by forcing us to update more components. (Yes, there are faster DDR2 mems available, etc - but if you're not oc'ing, benchmarks have shown little benefit).

Having said all that, I'm running DDR2 and SATA (with both IDE ports used).

Another con to IDE is that most newer motherboards have only 1 IDE slot (for optical drives), and multiple (up to 10?) SATA ports.

 

[Howard]

Right now? The physical interface, though I must admit the 4-pin power connectors are much more secure.

 

[Oyeve]

Originally posted by: Howard
Right now? The physical interface, though I must admit the 4-pin power connectors are much more secure.

yeah, but the data connections are weak. They pop out easy and I have even cracked a piece of plastic on one of my drives so it is even more loose. But, overall, I prefer SATA over PATA

 

[nickfd]

Originally posted by: JEDI
PATA hard drives are cheaper. (I got a 200gig pata from Stapes for $19 during Xmas.)

PATA in small storage sizes are cheaper, but PATA becomes seriously more expensive than SATA if you go over 200gb!!! Look at the cost of a 500gb sata2 (w/ncq) drive (129$-139$), comparing to 189-200$ for PATA.

 

[Howard]

Originally posted by: Oyeve

Originally posted by: Howard
Right now? The physical interface, though I must admit the 4-pin power connectors are much more secure.

yeah, but the data connections are weak.

I didn't say they weren't. PATA's tighter than SATA, but unlike the power connector, the SATA data connector hasn't fallen out on me.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Hitachi has produced a Terabyte SATA2 drive with "PST"

Meanwhile, have you ever seen 1,000 5-star customer reviews at NewEgg -- for ANYTHING?!!

Seagate "AS" 320GB drive for $95

Meanwhile, the "burst" throughput for SATA2 technology doesn't reflect the "true" improvement. For instance, a 150GB WD Raptor has a SUSTAINED throughput of 84 MB/sec, while this Seagate "Perpendicular" drive's sustained throughput is 78 MB/sec. For the price, you're not shorting yourself too much with the Seagate over the Raptor.

My view -- in reference to the "pyramid" model of computer storage. The Pyramid model has the CPU registers at the top: high-speed, low volume, high per-unit price. at the next and lower level, the L1 and L2 cache, respectively. "Slower" high-speed, larger low-volume, cheaper high-price. After that, DRAM -- again slower, more volume, lower per-unit price. Eventually, you are talking about electro-mechanical storage -- the hard disks.

With PST, the cost can be lower per GB, and the storage volume much, much larger. Maybe the throughput is the same. That, too, may continue changing in a positive direction.

But, open up the bottlenecks farther down the pyramid, and you can impress yourself with performance without over-clocking your CPU to life-shortening speeds.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

the pc in my sig would not be possible without sata. it's htpc with full sized parts. ribbons were better than rounded ide, but spaghetti is best.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Ah!! Dangler!! I keep learning more stuff. "AS" drives are not confined to the perpendicular storage technology. Yours are 7200.9, and the ones I'm lookin' at are 7200.10.

Still -- for $58 bucks apiece, and SATA2 . . . . pretty good, I'd say.

 

[Howard]

Originally posted by: BonzaiDuck
Hitachi has produced a Terabyte SATA2 drive with "PST"

Meanwhile, have you ever seen 1,000 5-star customer reviews at NewEgg -- for ANYTHING?!!

Actually 869.

 

[Midnight Rambler]

SATA connection woes are why I mentioned this SecureConnect cable in my earlier post ...

 

[Fike]

I run a SATA boot drive and IDE RAID 1 for data. I also use an old IDE hard drive for my pagefile and photoshop scratch disk. So, they can easily be used together. When you have that many hard drives along with two optical drives, the cables become a major annoyance, so the SATA may be better in the long run, if only from a cable management point of view.