NForce 4 motherboards and harddrives

[gamerxx13]

Currently I have a 160 gig harddrive, 7200 RPM. I was wondering with the new NFORCE 4 motherboards coming out, if I will be able to use this harddrive with it. It says it will support SATA II, but my harddrives are just IDE. What does SATA mean and will I be able to use this harddrive with the new NForce 4 board?

 

[PhattyB]

Short answer: yes

SATA is a newer technology than IDE (Faster transfer speeds over a new connector). Eventually it will take over but IDE will still be around for the next few years at least.

Here's some reading material you'll wanna look over:
http://www.nvidia.com/page/nforce4.html

 

[arswihart]

gamer, all new nforce4 boards will still have at least 2 IDE connectors for a total of 4 IDE devices (except for SFF systems - small form factor that is, which usually have only 1), then you can also use the SATA connectors on the board