Admist all the hot deals on PATA hard drives these days, I began wondering whether I should stop jumping on the various offers out there since SATA will eventually become the standard. The parallel interface seems to be still quite popular, but I'm wondering how much longer it'll stick around. When do you guys think motherboard manufacturers will start phasing out parallel inputs on their boards (i.e. cut down to one input instead of two)? I have a bunch of PATA hard drives, and I'm starting to think that maybe my next drive should be serial.
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How much longer before SATA becomes more popular than PATA?
- Thread starter Chang10is
- Start date
Philippine Mango
Diamond Member
Intel has already done this with thier new motherboard! :Q The board came with 4 SATA ports and only 1 PATA port. Though I can't remember what board it was a fairly new board. Looks like the end is near! If you have a system that supports SATA then just go for it anyways, you only get PATA if you have to have it. SATA just has so many advantages that there is no need for PATA. Though installing a windows operating system (XP if it has SP1 isn't so bad) can be a pain since you have to go through the menus in dos etc.. Install the SATA drivers and make sure everything turned out Ok.
zerocool84
Lifer
well im sure you'll be fine unless for some reason you think you will have to have the latest and greatest, sure they are new ans snazzy but im sure you'll be fine with PATA for as long as they are alive. its just storage, not much performance gains from newer storage devices. my 8MB hdd feels a little faster than my old one but it doesnt make me go wow. you should just buy one of those big drives now and you'll be happy with it for a while
I'm not really concerned about performance gains of SATA right now. The main issue is that I already have 4 PATA drives between 2 computers, so I don't want to buy another parallel drive if this interface for hard drives is going to be obsolete in 2 years. But if PATA will still be common 4-5 years down the road, I wouldn't mind taking advantage of another hot deal on a PATA hard drive. BTW, what's the best deal you guys have seen on a serial drive so far?
bob4432
Lifer
like a smaller cable? please tell me advantages that pata and scsi don't already cover. it is kind of like the floppy deal, even though you have to pay extra for them on some new machines, you still need them. they will be around forever. probably all just a way for the manfs to make more money from us - their thought - we will make 2 identical drives and put this smaller connector on one and chage more for it.
uOpt
Golden Member
I actually switched back from SATA to P-ATA when I had to replace my disks.
The major reason was that I wanted the potential ability to connect more drives at once, e.g. to transfer data from one array to another. Since you can connect two drives per P-ATA channel if you are willing to take the performance hit that is a huge advantage. Of course, by now a mainboard like my sockets 754 comes with secondary IDE controllers that don't do P-ATA anymore and there are 6 SATA channels so that wouldn't be an argument by now. But my server board can host 6 PATA or 4 SATA and the cheapo PATA PCI card I already have can take 4 drives.
I also don't like the connectors, it is obvious they can just fall off after a while in a vibrating case. Furthermore, they look easy to break. I never broke a PATA connector.
Maybe most importantly, I can't find external enclosures for SATA and I also have one for PATA. I want the ability to move my drives to secondary computers and external cases after they retire from my server.
I will wait for connector improvements, tagged command queueing, more ports and external enclosures before I do S-ATA again.
The major reason was that I wanted the potential ability to connect more drives at once, e.g. to transfer data from one array to another. Since you can connect two drives per P-ATA channel if you are willing to take the performance hit that is a huge advantage. Of course, by now a mainboard like my sockets 754 comes with secondary IDE controllers that don't do P-ATA anymore and there are 6 SATA channels so that wouldn't be an argument by now. But my server board can host 6 PATA or 4 SATA and the cheapo PATA PCI card I already have can take 4 drives.
I also don't like the connectors, it is obvious they can just fall off after a while in a vibrating case. Furthermore, they look easy to break. I never broke a PATA connector.
Maybe most importantly, I can't find external enclosures for SATA and I also have one for PATA. I want the ability to move my drives to secondary computers and external cases after they retire from my server.
I will wait for connector improvements, tagged command queueing, more ports and external enclosures before I do S-ATA again.
PingSpike
Lifer
I don't really have any plans to switch to SATA anytime soon. The performance advantage isn't there yet. I do like that the cables are a little cleaner, but where is the optical drive support? The dual channels on PATA aren't much of a boon for me anymore, as I typically install one drive per channel anyway.
I'll switch when the time comes, but for now I just don't see much of a reason too.
There ARE adaptors available if I recall.
I'll switch when the time comes, but for now I just don't see much of a reason too.
There ARE adaptors available if I recall.
wisdomtooth
Golden Member
Hmm... Back in the BX days when everybody was overclocking their Celeron 300As, I already had a Promise Ultra66 PCI card running 40GB IBM Deskstars and they boot fine. And that's 6+ years ago.
I would be surprised to see a computer today that can't boot off a PCI controller card.
Back to the topic: SATA is going to get popular because hard disks keep getting bigger and bigger. ATA66 and ATA100 has bios limitations that prevents them from detecting the full capacity of drives bigger than 120GB, requiring you to use a software BIOS patch. SATA (ATA150) does not.
I regretted buying a PATA 160GB Maxtor a few months ago, because I had a motherboard with SATA. Had to install the software patch to use it. FInally picked up a Serillel adapter to run it with the SATA interface and eliminate the BIOS patch, but it's even flimsier (big ol' chunk of plastic hanging droopily off the back end of the drive).
I should have gone with SATA from the outset.
uOpt
Golden Member
The capacity issue is only a problem if you run WIndows or OS/2. Linux and FreeBSD will only require that their boot mechanism (usually not not neccessarily the boot or the root partition) is within the area recognized. Once they have their own IDE drivers up they ignore what the stupid BIOS thinks about the drive's geometry and capacity.
For IDE machines I ran like that for at least 5 years, I always had the first partition in the first 8 Gig just to be sure I can move to a potentially braindead PC. I probably kept the habit longer than the machines required.
Huh. My system BIOS doesn't list any drives attached to my PCI controller card when I go into the BIOS setup menu. That's what I remember, anyway... It's been a while since I fooled around with that. How did you guys set up the BIOS/boot order so that you booted off a drive attached to a PCI card?
I recently bought a 160 GB hd and will install it sometime in the next week. Where do I get a BIOS patch so that the computer will recognize it as 160 gigs? And is this BIOS patch necessary regardless of whether the hd is attached to the mobo or PCI controller card, or do you not need it for the latter?
Thanks for everyone's input on this thread!
WalkingDead
Golden Member
none of you talks about the premium the HDD makers charge on the SATA drives? It's usually $20-$50 more than the PATA drive. What a rip-off! Especially SATA drives from Seagate. Which are all native SATA and their PATA drives use a bridge chip.
Untill they selling the SATA drives the same price as the PATA drives. I won't buy one.
Untill they selling the SATA drives the same price as the PATA drives. I won't buy one.
teutonicknight
Senior member
Right now I'm 1/2 and 1/2, I'll fully move on to SATA when serial opical drives go mainstream.
wisdomtooth
Golden Member
Well, if you are going to go for the bleeding-edge drives like those with NCQ and 10K RPM, of course the makers are going to charge you a premium.
But just to get started with SATA with entry-level drives, the prices aren't THAT much different.
The Western Digitals for example at ZZF:
WD Caviar 250GB PATA 8MB buffer 7200RPM - $144
WD Caviar 250GB SATA 8MB buffer 7200RPM - $148
$4 difference.
All else being equal (and they are-- The WD 250GB SATA and PATA drives are essentially the same, except the interface), I'd take the SATA Caviar over the PATA one if I got a mobo with SATA connectors.
WalkingDead
Golden Member
well, I took that into the consideration too. Fry's has the Maxtor or WD drives and sometime seagate & Hitachi PATA drives on sale couple times a week. Even before the rebates cra*ps the on sale PATA drives are $20-$40 cheaper than the SATA version. Fry's almost never has SATA drives on sale. Bestbuy deals are the similar.
wisdomtooth
Golden Member
Of course the retailers like Fry's or Best Buy will try to unload the PATA drives by putting them on sale-- They are trying to clear inventory before the PATA drives they have in stock loses all value.
That's the thing about selling computer components-- If you have any sizeable inventory, you are screwed. 😀
We can all agree lots of guys on this here board buy from ZZF and the Egg. You can find similar prices for SATA and PATA drives like the Maxtors and WDs. I did notice that Seagate and Hitachi do have a higher price differential, but there's nothing preventing you from buying a WD or Maxtor instead which has more price parity. It's Seagate and Hitachi's loss.
That's the thing about selling computer components-- If you have any sizeable inventory, you are screwed. 😀
We can all agree lots of guys on this here board buy from ZZF and the Egg. You can find similar prices for SATA and PATA drives like the Maxtors and WDs. I did notice that Seagate and Hitachi do have a higher price differential, but there's nothing preventing you from buying a WD or Maxtor instead which has more price parity. It's Seagate and Hitachi's loss.
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