SATA drives? Where are they?

[crobb100]

Been looking for a 120 GB SATA drive. I see Seagates out there but not WD or Maxtor yet-they were supposed to ship this week according to company info I've read on SATA.

I am using an Asus P4PE MB right now with SATA controller and would prefer to use SATA cables-the HD is the ONLY component I don't have to complete this sys.

I prefer not to get a Seagate-have heard a lot about WD quality control and return problems-will probably pick up a Maxtor 120 GB 8 MB cache, fluid bearing drive-if I can find one.

Anyone have any info on them?

Thanks

 

[ScrewFace]

I have an 80GB WD 800BB. This is my second one as the first one developed a sh*tload of bad sectors the 1st day I had it so I can see your reluctance to purchase one. I wish Fujitsu still made desktop hard-drives. Thier quality was unmatched. About SATA drives: it's still a brand new technology and until enough people buy SATA-supported mobos it'll take awhile for companies to jump on board. Expect to see SATA hard-drives as the norm by next year.

 

[poMONKey]

im waiting too... got an 8inxp w/2x sata connectors beggin to be striped ...

there have been some stability issues raised ( whatever... ) and the availablity was to have been the 12th of feb....

thanks for the tip on the quality control and return probs... the WD is a fluid bearing drive as well, so it might be quit-ish... who knows about any of it, i just wanna see the price! im sure they will work just fine... WD makes scsi drives too... those seem to work

 

[crobb100]

OK-answered my own question. Response from Maxtor:

Lead times for the new SATA products have moved out somewhat. This is the
current estimate:

Volume shipments on all capacities of the DiamondMax Plus 9 SATA drives are
currently estimated at mid-to late April.

There is no published pricing for SATA drives at this time.

Maxtor Corporation

Oh well......guess no SATA for me-I can't wait until April to get my system up!

 

[Adul]

WD has no SCSI division

 

[ctk1981]

Although a few places are claiming to have the seagate 80GB model (i seriously doubt because it says, 1) at least you can get a price estimate. 123-141.99 for a seagate 80GB 8MB cache hd is the going rate on those.

I might wait for a maxtor drive however. Ive had very good luck with there drives.

 

[Mallow]

MaximumPC did a comparision with SATA and ATA-133 drives this month. There was basically no performance gain on the current SATA standard wish is 150MB/sec (I think). However, SATA format has the room to expand up to 300MB/sec whereas ATA is basically maxed out at 133.

So the only real reason to get SATA right now is to clear up the clutter form the parallel ATA cables and so that money doesn't burn a hole in your pocket. In a couple months new drives will be out at the faster standards and you will have wish you had waited.

 

[ctk1981]

I want one for clearing up the cables mainly. Looks pretty slick with that little cable.

Oh btw, recently there was a thread that had a link to a review of the seagate barracuda SATA drives with the new nForce2 ide drivers. The sata in the review was doing very very well compared to the others tested (I believe a WD SE, Maxtor, etc). But this was with the new nForce2 drivers only. It might have been all the drives got a 20-40% boost with the new drivers, but the sata in the article was on top. With normal drivers they werent anything special at all. Any ideas where this review was or whats going on?