SATA Drives worthwhile yet?

[pas]

Anandtech's latest storage guide says there's no advantage to getting SATA drives at this point. True? From what I've gathered, the latest crop can theoretically do 150 MB/s (vs. 133 for PATA, and 600 MB/s max expected for SATA), but because of other factors it's actually more like 75 MB/s.

 

[RampantAndroid]

One MAJOR advantage: WD Raptor 10,000 RPM HDs. The 74 GB verison (which outperforms is smaller brothers) easily beats out Seagate CHeetah 15K RPM drives.....yes, they are slowly approching 100 MB/s, plus the cables are more resilient and smaller. I will never buy a PATA drive again...not unles it is for one of my family's old Athlon ThunderBird systems.

 

[pas]

Yeah, but the raptors only have, what, 36GB. I bought a SATA anyway - only about $10 more for the same size (200GB). Figured I'd like the thinner, less obtrusive cable plus I have quite a few PATA devices.

edit - and having to set master/slave

 

[KerriAnn]

aren't raptors obnoxiously loud? i have a seagate sata 80 gig. it makes much more noise than the wd 80 ata100 i used to own. its not so loud that it bothers me, i have a volcano 12 running at 4500 rpms, so i don't hear much of anything else...

 

[zodder]

I love the small size of the SATA cables. Much neater when you have a side window.

 

[NumbaJuan]

Originally posted by: KerriAnn
aren't raptors obnoxiously loud? i have a seagate sata 80 gig. it makes much more noise than the wd 80 ata100 i used to own. its not so loud that it bothers me, i have a volcano 12 running at 4500 rpms, so i don't hear much of anything else...

The new Raptors have fluid bearings and are very quiet. The 5yr. warranty is also a plus.

 

[trexpesto]

my seagate 160 is near silent.

 

[Lotdog]

Raptors have 36 and 74 GB. They are very quiet and fast and it's worth of buying!

 

[islandtechengineers]

if you're currently on ide and you're unsure about sata = but your looking into the newer technology, just kick back and wait for sata2.

 

[pantner]

wat about if you are planning on doing a RAID 0 array???

im hoping to buy 2x200Gb Seagate SATAs in a month or so...(BTW, don't suggest the WD Raptors, 1.they are too small....2.i don't like WD!!!!) and striping them

 

[Pollock]

If it's only a couple dollars more, like it was for me, you might as well, but if it's any more than $10 it probably isn't worth it in my book.

 

[pantner]

i assume that you mean $10 US, which would translate into about $15-20 for me (Australian)...and yes, there is that difference between the two....

 

[billyjak]

Segates new Sata drive the 400giger will have 16meg cache and command quering.
It's poised at competing with the Raptors and the Diamondmax. Their new drive will be on only 3 platters thus making it the smallest in it's class, so that alone will boost speed.
Worth checking out.

 

[pas]

I thought all SATA drives had command queueing.

 

[Bar81]

Originally posted by: NumbaJuan

Originally posted by: KerriAnn
aren't raptors obnoxiously loud? i have a seagate sata 80 gig. it makes much more noise than the wd 80 ata100 i used to own. its not so loud that it bothers me, i have a volcano 12 running at 4500 rpms, so i don't hear much of anything else...

The new Raptors have fluid bearings and are very quiet. The 5yr. warranty is also a plus.

They're not even close to being quiet. They new 74GB models are quieter than the older models but still cause noise in two ways. One, the high 10k rpm spindle speed results in vibrations that reverberate throughout your case even if lined with sound absorbtion material. The only way to eliminate that noise is to completely decouple the drive from the case. Two, the sound during drive access is on par with that from SCSI drives, a large crunching noise. That may or may not bother a user.

 

[Bar81]

Originally posted by: pas
I thought all SATA drives had command queueing.

Read up at www.storagereview.com for the information on that topic.

 

[Bar81]

Originally posted by: pantner
wat about if you are planning on doing a RAID 0 array???

im hoping to buy 2x200Gb Seagate SATAs in a month or so...(BTW, don't suggest the WD Raptors, 1.they are too small....2.i don't like WD!!!!) and striping them

Why? Have you missed *every* recent article explaining how RAID 0 is pointless and puts your data at higher risk? Check out www.storagereview.com and the anandtech front page for a little education.

 

[Bar81]

Originally posted by: islandtechengineers
if you're currently on ide and you're unsure about sata = but your looking into the newer technology, just kick back and wait for sata2.

For almost all users there's absolutely no point to waiting as there's nothing coming in SATA II that's gonna bring about significant advantages in performance. There's no need to go to SATA (outside of the Raptor) at this point but there's no disadvantage either.

 

[Bar81]

nm

 

[Munkies123]

idk

 

[pantner]

Why? Have you missed *every* recent article explaining how RAID 0 is pointless and puts your data at higher risk? Check out www.storagereview.com and the anandtech front page for a little education.

It really depends wat you are going to do WITH the machine, and with the hard drives that you have RAIDed.....if i was just going to play games, then, yes, i completly agree with you.....if you're not (and im not) JUST going to be playing games, and do something like oh i don't know, Video converting/rendering and stuff like that, then it is good...