Cant decide between SATA and IDE for my PC

[ibex333]

I have an old Dell dimension 2400 which I will be using mostly as a server. I'm about to purchase a hard drive for it, but I'm not sure which would be a better option for me. Should I:

a)Get an IDE hard drive (mobo only supports IDE - it's a BLUFORD E139765)

or

b)Get a PCI SATA card and get a SATA HD?

If I understand correctly, different mobos have different PCI bus speeds and transfer rates. I am assuming that since I have a very old crappy mobo, my PCI slot should also be very slow... But would that solution be faster or slower as opposed to using an older IDE 7200rpm HD? I really don't know what is better for me here... Off course price vs. performance is also a concern here. I don't want to waste money on a controller card when I can have the same xfer rate with IDE interface and vise versa.

Thanks.

 

[Barfo]

What's the server for?
I think you'll be fine with IDE in most cases.

 

[elconejito]

Take this with a grain of salt, and somebody correct me please if I'm wrong but...

If I remember right, PCI data rates top out at about 30-40mb/s. So even if you had a gigabit network, and a WD caviar black which tops out at over 100mb/s, you'd still be capped by the PCI slot at 30-40mb/s.

So, definitely not worth it in my book. Any speed gains you might get from SATA would be offset by the PCI slot limitation. Oh, and if you are not on a gigabit network it likely wont make a difference either.

If it is a PCI-e slot, then it's a different story.

 

[bruceb]

For an old computer, stay with IDE for the boot drive.

 

[ibex333]

Thanks very much.

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: elconejito
Take this with a grain of salt, and somebody correct me please if I'm wrong but...

If I remember right, PCI data rates top out at about 30-40mb/s. So even if you had a gigabit network, and a WD caviar black which tops out at over 100mb/s, you'd still be capped by the PCI slot at 30-40mb/s.

So, definitely not worth it in my book. Any speed gains you might get from SATA would be offset by the PCI slot limitation. Oh, and if you are not on a gigabit network it likely wont make a difference either.

If it is a PCI-e slot, then it's a different story.

You're not wrong. I agree with him (and the others too). Stick with IDE. You'd be amazed at how fast an old system can be if all it's doing is file serving/streaming.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Nope, the PCI bus can muster upwards of 120MB/sec, on a good PCI implementation, when there isn't much bus contention.

SATA HDs are larger and cheaper than IDE. Perfect for a file-server.

Get a Syba 4-port PCI SATA controller from NewEgg, and get a WD Caviar Green 1TB HD.

 

[Blain]

PCI + SATA HD

 

[0roo0roo]

ide.
if it eventually dies and no ide are around u'll buy an sata card then.... no need to pay now.

 

[Arcanedeath]

Get the PCI Sata Card and the SATA HDD, SATA drivers are faster and cheaper than PATA ones so you usually ended up paying about the same for a PATA drive & a SATA drive Plus PCI Card.

 

[StinkyPinky]

Careful that the bios can support hard drives of a certain size

 

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: StinkyPinky
Careful that the bios can support hard drives of a certain size

Agree! Also, stick with PATA as the boot drive. You can add SATA for a data drive. BTW - both PATA and SATA are IDE!