Are SATA drives faster than comparable ATA drives?

[Kaido]

I'm working on a little project and I need a big drive for it. The motherboard has an ATA connection. The drive I want, the Seagate 400gb 7200.9, is available in both ATA and SATA formats. Would I get any performance increase by using the SATA drive with an SATA-to-ATA adapter? Here are the drives:

ATA drive

SATA drive

There's a $20 price difference, not too bad. I figure that an SATA drive would take more advantage of an ATA bus, even with an adapter in place. Yay/nay?

 

[Greenman]

As far as I know, SATA drives are no faster than ATA. Both are limited by the hard drive, not the interface.

 

[ch33zw1z]

the SATA drive listed there will give you a huge jump in real world performance. If you're planning on upgrading, that SATAII drive is the way to go...especially if it's only $20 difference.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: ch33zw1z
the SATA drive listed there will give you a huge jump in real world performance. If you're planning on upgrading, that SATAII drive is the way to go...especially if it's only $20 difference.

Well...I will be using an ATA adapter on the SATA drive if I decide to use the SATA drive. My question is, will I see any performance improvement by going that route instead of just using an ATA drive on the ATA line?

 

[Bobthelost]

I really doubt there will be any measurable performance increase, but for future upgrade paths it might be worth shelling out on the SATA interface. The newer intel boards are already cutting back on the ATA ports availible. AM2 will almost certainly do the same.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Bobthelost
I really doubt there will be any measurable performance increase, but for future upgrade paths it might be worth shelling out on the SATA interface. The newer intel boards are already cutting back on the ATA ports availible. AM2 will almost certainly do the same.

This is actually for a quirky project...I'm putting an Intel Mini in a tower case. The Mini has one SATA port and one ATA port. The SATA port is going to get a Raptor 150 (as the boot drive). The ATA port will get a DVD burner and a secondary backup hard drive (the Seagate 400gb). I can optionally use an SATA-to-ATA adapter to use an SATA Seagate on the ATA cable. I don't know if it's worth the extra $20 for SATA + cost of the adapter though.

 

[Bobthelost]

Then no, I can't imagine that it's worth the extra.

Sounds interesting though, don't forget the photos.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Bobthelost
Then no, I can't imagine that it's worth the extra.

Sounds interesting though, don't forget the photos.

I will, if it works! The Mini's SATA cable is a little screwy, and I'm trying to find some workarounds for cabling, mounting solutions, etc. Setup:

Bare G4 "Quicksilver" tower case
Basic Intel Mac Mini
Intel T2500 Core Duo @ 2ghz
2gb aftermarket ram
Raptor 150 (SATA)
Seagate 400gb (SATA or ATA)
BenQ Lightscribe drive
EyeTV 200 (TV tuner/video capture firewire device)

I'm going to try to stack all of that inside the Quicksilver case and add some better cooling for the Mini. That way I get a cool case with a silent, powerful Mini for a lot cheaper than I could get it from Apple. The case is in the mail, and after I do measurements on it, I'll order the rest of the parts. Should make a pretty sweet system

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Bobthelost
I really doubt there will be any measurable performance increase, but for future upgrade paths it might be worth shelling out on the SATA interface. The newer intel boards are already cutting back on the ATA ports availible. AM2 will almost certainly do the same.

Ahah, there IS a performance increase, even when using an adapter!

www.addonics.com/news/media/2005/SATA-IDE.pdf

 

[allanon1965]

doesnt appear to be much of an increase though, hardly worth the effort....