SATA questions

[Executioner]

Gents,
I have an older mobo that I'm going to be using, and I would like to try using a SATA drive. The mobo does not have any connections for this type of HD, only ATA133.

What is the difference between serial ATA150 and SATA 3.0gb/s?

Are there differences between add-in cards for SATA support?

How many devices can you add to a SATA controller?

Any other info?

 

[sivart]

Originally posted by: Executioner
Gents,
I have an older mobo that I'm going to be using, and I would like to try using a SATA drive. The mobo does not have any connections for this type of HD, only ATA133.

What is the difference between serial ATA150 and SATA 3.0gb/s?

If you are just email, web, photos, no noticable difference, but the hard drive will be ready for a future upgrade

Are there differences between add-in cards for SATA support?

Between add in cards and what exactly?

How many devices can you add to a SATA controller?

1

 

[Executioner]

It's not a gaming rig, but it will be downloading and using large files from newsgroups, especially video files. So the SATA 3.0 gb/s are the fastest?

As for the add-in cards, I was wondering if there are differences between each card (e.g. is one better than the other).

So only one HD on the controller? No daisy chaining like regular ATA drives?

 

[sivart]

That is correct only one device on each SATA controller. Downloading you won't see a difference because you are limited by your ISP speed. If you are transfering the files once they are downloaded, you may notice a small difference if the files are large enough. Playing the files shouldn't make a difference since obviously it will take longer to watch than to transfer the raw data.

I would go with SATA for the upgradable feature alone (assuming that the pricing is similiar). For example, the Dell 8400 machine that I have has 4 SATA controllers and only one IDE. So for me, it wouldn't make sense to buy an IDE hard drive since I already have 2 optical drives.

 

[imported_Woody]

I just did some research here and settled on a 250GB Maxtor DiamondMax10 SATA drive as my boot drive in my new system. I haven't got it yet but it is a great value, highly rated, and supports many of the new SATA300 features anyway like NCQ if your SATA card supports it.

The 250GB drive is the best value per size in that model currently. If you have a choice of controller cards I would pick up the SATA2 (SATA300) if not too much more money simply for the future upgrade choices.

I don't think there is any reason to actually purchase SATA2 drives now unless you plan on making a RAID0 with them and have nots of money to burn. In that department, Anandtech just reviewed the new Seagate 7200.9 drives.... good reading.