Confused: SATA, IDE, SCSI .....what is all this, what Do I need?

[nuklep]

Ok, this is probably second language to most of you guys (that is why i'm asking)

i was looking at the new Gigabyte GA-P35-DQ6. It only has one IDE connector (correct me if i'm wrong)

so, how do I connect my 2 DVD drives (IDE) and another hard drive (IDE) to the board?

As far as superior technology, how do sata, ide and scsi stack up against each other?

my question might be lacking details because I'm confused.

Thanks for the help

Edit: added topic summary

 

[JohnDoe2]

Originally posted by: nuklep
i was looking at the new Gigabyte GA-P35-DQ6. It only has one IDE connector (correct me if i'm wrong)

so, how do I connect my 2 DVD drives (IDE) and another hard drive (IDE) to the board?/q]

You could get an IDE controller card ($30 or so), or you can put your IDE drive into an external Firewire enclosure to use for backup and buy a SATA drive for your main drive. Something like this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16817145398

Or you could buy a SATA DVD drive, but the second DVD drive and HD on the same IDE cable would have terrible performance. Maybe you should dump the two IDE DVDs and get a SATA DVD?

I suggest the IDE->external Firewire enclosure route because SATA drives are faster than IDE and you will still get to keep all your old drives.

 

[Howard]

SCSI is on its way to becoming obsolete. Also, it's expensive, so just forget about it entirely.

SATA is the new IDE, except that each device uses its own port instead of IDE being able to handle two devices. Also, there are no more drives being developed for IDE, AFAIK, so if you want the new tech, you'll have to move to SATA. It really is a better format, and not just in terms of speed; the data cable is way better, if you get locking cables (the ones with latches; they'll probably come with your motherboard).

 

[striped]

Forget about SCSI, the drive and controller is too expensive, though the drive itself is much faster than IDE (PATA) or SATA. I also strongly believe that Gigabyte GA-P35-DQ6 doesn't have a SCSI controller so you'll have to buy that separately.

SATA by design is somewhat faster than PATA but in fact has about the same data transfer speed. SATA also implements NCQ, which might increase speed in some scenarios. A much narrower cable, as other people say, is also an advantage.

BTW SATA is a serial version of the IDE interface, PATA is a parallel one. So both are IDE

 

[nuklep]

Originally posted by: striped
Forget about SCSI, the drive and controller is too expensive, though the drive itself is much faster than IDE (PATA) or SATA. I also strongly believe that Gigabyte GA-P35-DQ6 doesn't have a SCSI controller so you'll have to buy that separately.

SATA by design is somewhat faster than PATA but in fact has about the same data transfer speed. SATA also implements NCQ, which might increase speed in some scenarios. A much narrower cable, as other people say, is also an advantage.

BTW SATA is a serial version of the IDE interface, PATA is a parallel one. So both are IDE

something else i'm confused with is when in description onf SATA drives:

3GB/s rate and 300mb/s

are there diff kind of SATAs ??

 

[Cerb]

For purposes of specs:
300MB/s = 3Gbs
150MB/s = 1.5Gbs

It's not 3GB/s (gigaBYTEs), but 3Gb/s (gigaBITs).

There kind of are different SATAs, but don't worry about it. They'll all plug in and work, and most drives out there now support 3Gb/s, hot plugging, NCQ (native hardware command queuing), and so on.

 

[strafejumper]

im in similar situation

have 2 ide optical drives and 1 320gb hdd + 1 400gb hdd

i see only 1 ide connector on the
"GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3 (rev. 1.3) LGA 775 Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard"
(seems to be the popular mobo right now)

so i think what i will do is buy a 38 dollar samsung sata dvd burner to replace the two optical drives and keep the two pata hdd's

i figure the sata drives aren't that much faster and buying a new sata dvd drive is cheaper than buying 720 gb of sata storage

 

[striped]

Originally posted by: Cerb
For purposes of specs:
300MB/s = 3Gbs
150MB/s = 1.5Gbs

Just to clarify. Here we take into account 8b10b coding overhead, so the actual transfer rate is 1.2 Gbit/s (150 MB/s) for SATAI and 2.4 Gbit/s (300 MB/s) for SATAII.
In other words, to transfer 8 bits, HDD in fact transfers 10.

 

[striped]

Originally posted by: strafejumper
i see only 1 ide connector on the
"GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3 (rev. 1.3) LGA 775 Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard"
so i think what i will do is buy a 38 dollar samsung sata dvd burner to replace the two optical drives and keep the two pata hdd's
i figure the sata drives aren't that much faster and buying a new sata dvd drive is cheaper than buying 720 gb of sata storage

Your 2 PATA drives placed on the same IDE channel will work twice as slow if working together, e.g. when you copy files from one to another, comparing to 2PATA drives placed on 2 different channels or 2 SATA drives.
Indeed, DS3 has only one IDE channel so that's your only option if you want to keep both of them.

As an option you can get an USB or Firewire external enclosure for cheap and put one them in there. That's exactly what I did

 

[Edge1]

Or you may want to stop looking at the DQ6 and check out a 650i mobo. They come with 2 IDE channels (supports up to 4 IDE devices) as well as SATA ports. What I would do if I were you:

Buy a mobo like this:

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/...jsp?ProductCode=249641

or this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813131142

1) Put your DVD drives on 1 IDE cable
2) Put your HDD on other IDE cable

I'd also highly consider a SATA HDD like this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16822144701

 

[gramboh]

Originally posted by: strafejumper
so i think what i will do is buy a 38 dollar samsung sata dvd burner to replace the two optical drives and keep the two pata hdd's

i figure the sata drives aren't that much faster and buying a new sata dvd drive is cheaper than buying 720 gb of sata storage

This makes the most sense. Unless you do a lot of ripping there isn't much point to having more than one optical drive. I use a Samsung 18x SATA DVDRW and am happy with it. The thinner cable is nice. So far the drive has been great, I've only coastered a few DVDs (burning a self-authored DVD at 16x, I think it was the crappy Ritek media, it worked fine at 4X).

If you are concerned about HDD performance from having two PATA drives on one channel, buy one new SATA drive like the Seagate 7200.10 320GB for $85 or whatever it costs now and use that for your OS/games and use the PATA drives for storage. Then you will have over 1TB .