Entering the world of SATA- Anything I need to know?

[Coldkilla]

I saw some nice SATA HDD's out there, but Im reluctant to buy them for one reason: I never owned one before, I've only built 1 computer, and Im afraid I'll F it up.

I have 2 80gb hdd's and i quickly learned that I need at least 4x that many! I was wondering what exactly do I need to know about SATA's before purchasing them?

 

[essasin]

Nothing...just like ide except a different interface.

 

[Oyeve]

And you may need sata drivers for your drive if doing a fresh install. No big deal tho.

 

[acole1]

Make sure you have SATA ports on your mobo.

The only jumpers are on SATA-II to switch btwn 150 and 300.

When installing Windows (depending on the motherboard) you have to hit F6 to "Install SCSI drivers."



Welcome to the modern age!

 

[FreedomGUNDAM]

nothing serious. I just swapped out both of my IDE to SATA (WD 74gb Raptor and Seagate 1600GB). Basically it was plug and play

 

[Coldkilla]

Any preformance difference? If so - how?

 

[acole1]

Originally posted by: Coldkilla
Any preformance difference? If so - how?

Not really.

In theory, yes. But actualy, there isn't much difference btwn IDE133 and SATA150/300.

 

[Coldkilla]

I did notice the aweesome price difference though

Question:

Say I have 1 400gb sata hdd and i format my pc. you say that sometimes i need a cd to install the drivers- 2 questions:

1. Which Sata Hdd would be a plug a play and what wouldnt be?
2. When Formatting and I loose all my data, how can I install windows on the hdd? Do I need at least 1 IDE in order to have windows on it?

 

[Aluvus]

Originally posted by: Coldkilla
I did notice the aweesome price difference though

Question:

Say I have 1 400gb sata hdd and i format my pc. you say that sometimes i need a cd to install the drivers- 2 questions:

1. Which Sata Hdd would be a plug a play and what wouldnt be?
2. When Formatting and I loose all my data, how can I install windows on the hdd? Do I need at least 1 IDE in order to have windows on it?

1. Whether you need drivers or not doesn't depend on the drive itself.
2. You put the drivers on a floppy.

 

[acole1]

Often times the motherboard will come with a SATA controller driver on a floppy disk for you to use when installing Windows. All you have to do is hit F6 when prompted (near the beginning of the blue screen install part) and follow the directions.

Many newer motherboards don't need you to do this though... this might be more of what Freedom is refering to.

Also, if you *don't* do a fresh install of windows, all you have to do is plug it in (push untill it snaps into place), and when you start up your computer, it will detect it as a new drive.



Another thing you will want to note is that your Windows installation might not see the hard drive since it is larger than 131GB.

If when you are installing Windows, it only shows you a 131GB partition *do not panick*!! Just install Windows on that partition for now.

With Win2k, install atleast SP3 to see the rest of the drive space, go into disk management, and format the rest of the drive.
With XP, install atleast SP1, go into disk management, and format the rest of the drive.

This size "limitation" occurs on either IDE or SATA, but since it looks like you have only had 80GB drives in the past I thought I might mention it.

 

[raincityboy]

Originally posted by: Oyeve
And you may need sata drivers for your drive if doing a fresh install. No big deal tho.

This is only true if using an old WinXp CD. If you use a SP2 disc you don't need to install the drivers.

 

[SonicIce]

Originally posted by: raincityboy

Originally posted by: Oyeve
And you may need sata drivers for your drive if doing a fresh install. No big deal tho.

This is only true if using an old WinXp CD. If you use a SP2 disc you don't need to install the drivers.

I thought it depended on if you were using a sata port built into the chipset or one from a seprate chip like silicon image. it depends on the mobo though.

 

[Coldkilla]

Say I dont have a floppy drive, seeing as I use flash drives nowadays.. does than mean i will need a floppy for 100% sure now that I have a sata drive?

 

[acole1]

Originally posted by: Coldkilla
Say I dont have a floppy drive, seeing as I use flash drives nowadays.. does than mean i will need a floppy for 100% sure now that I have a sata drive?

What motherboard do you have?

 

[Rage187]

Originally posted by: Coldkilla
Say I dont have a floppy drive, seeing as I use flash drives nowadays.. does than mean i will need a floppy for 100% sure now that I have a sata drive?

why not put the sata drivers on the flashdrive and then set your boot device as USB HD?

 

[alimoalem]

Originally posted by: Coldkilla
Any preformance difference? If so - how?

brace yourself...these things are FAST




i'm bored...just waiting for the technical crew to come out

 

[Coldkilla]

Well it does say 3gb/s on the websites.. idk in what sence its 3gb/s in but yea i know that its there heh

As for motherboard, im looking to buy a new one. What should I look for then - if I dont have a floppy:

quote:
Originally posted by: Coldkilla
Say I dont have a floppy drive, seeing as I use flash drives nowadays.. does than mean i will need a floppy for 100% sure now that I have a sata drive?

acole1--
What motherboard do you have?

 

[betasub]

Originally posted by: Coldkilla
What should I look for then - if I dont have a floppy:

If you are building from scratch, you can either get a $5 floppy drive to cover "worst-case", or look for a motherboard that has a chipset with integral SATA (e.g. Nforce3/4/5) as opposed to only through an additional chip (e.g. SiliconImage only on Nforce2 Ultra).