SATA vs IDE Hard Drives

[MrToilet]

So I'm in the market for a new HD, as I have already filled up the 2 IDE drives (80 Gb and 120 Gb) that I have.

My question now is whether I should buy a SATA drive, or another IDE drive. I have no more IDE connections on my motherboard, so I would have to buy a PCI IDE controller (~$10-15) in addition to the IDE drive.

Is there really a performance difference or anything between the two types? There are some killer deals right now on both kinds, so I'm not sure.

 

[xanis]

Yes, there is a big difference between IDE and SATA. SATA is a helluvalot faster than IDE. Before you buy, just make sure your motherboard supports SATA.

 

[MrToilet]

I have the DFI LANParty NF3 board, w/ (I think ) 4 SATA connections.

Right now I'm looking @ either the Seagate IDE 200 Gb for $60 AR
200 GB
or

Seagate 300 Gb SATA for $110 AR @ outpost.com
300 GB

So which one?

 

[Budman]

pretty simple descision....

you cant add any more IDE devices so buy a SATA drive.

 

[DanDaMan315]

Originally posted by: Xanis
Yes, there is a big difference between IDE and SATA. SATA is a helluvalot faster than IDE. Before you buy, just make sure your motherboard supports SATA.

Partly right, mostly wrong. SATA has the potential to much faster, however modern hard drives can definitely not max out the bus speed IDE 133. So really in terms of speed there is no difference.

 

[xanis]

Curse you and your knowledge!

 

[orangat]

This is a no brainer. Get a sata drive. And you won't have to fiddle around with a pci card, lose a pci slot, use the fat klunky ATA cable or need to set jumpers.

 

[biostud]

Originally posted by: Budman
pretty simple descision....

you cant add any more IDE devices so buy a SATA drive.

:thumbsup:

also the cables are nicer than IDE.

 

[Insomniak]

Not enough performance difference between SATA and IDE last time I looked to justify any extra expense, but since prices are pretty much the same these days, might as well go SATA.

 

[CraigRT]

Originally posted by: DanDaMan315

Originally posted by: Xanis
Yes, there is a big difference between IDE and SATA. SATA is a helluvalot faster than IDE. Before you buy, just make sure your motherboard supports SATA.

Partly right, mostly wrong. SATA has the potential to much faster, however modern hard drives can definitely not max out the bus speed IDE 133. So really in terms of speed there is no difference.

That's what I was going to say. Put an IDE vs a SATA drive together and you would not be able to tell the difference unless your IDE controller or SATA controller was dinked. The theoretical throughput is better on SATA, but the drives themselves cannot saturate the bandwidth available even to ATA/100, let alone ATA/133 (IDE) and SATA (150)

 

[redhatlinux]

Why not go SATA, the reason, save one layer of interface on the HDD. Data comes off the heads serially. The HDD then has a serial to parallel buffer, assembling the data into a parallel register, wht not eliminate it. Also, the 'cross talk' on the parallel interface gets to be a big problem as the speeds get faster, hence the reason for the 80 wire cables with grounds seperating each data lead. If you have ever looked at this kind of interface with a 'scope, you see that there is lots of 'noise' on the signal.

 

[hurtstotalktoyou]

Definitely SATA. Factor in an IDE controller, and it would probably be cheaper, anyway. But SATA allows you to use RAID (in the future) and although technically it's not the interface that makes the difference, SATA drives do indeed tend to be faster than EIDE models. Try for a nice Barracuda 7200.7 drive; I'm sure you'll like it.

 

[anarchyreigns]

A SATA drive is an IDE drive.

 

[natto fire]

Originally posted by: anarchyreigns
A SATA drive is an IDE drive.

Yep.
SATA=Serial Advanced Technology Attachment
IDE=Imbedded/Integrated Drive Electronics
PATA=Parallel Advanced Technology Attacment

And as already pointed out, it is the mechanical parts that make hard drives slow, not the interface.

 

[imported_i2k]

Go the SATA simply cos the cables are neater

 

[MrToilet]

I'm looking @ buying the Seagate 250 GB SATA drive from ZipZoomFly.com

LINKY LINK

The question I have is this: Is there a way to easily make this my secondary drive? Right now I have essentially all my Windows apps, backup documents on C: (60 GB Seagate PATA), and all my non-Windows applications,games, etc. on D: drive (120 GB PATA Seagate drive). I'd like to use the new SATA drive as the D: drive- same programs, games, etc. Is there an easy way to do this, or do I need to re-install everything onto the new drive?

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: Captain_Howdy

Originally posted by: anarchyreigns
A SATA drive is an IDE drive.

Yep.
SATA=Serial Advanced Technology Attachment
IDE=Imbedded/Integrated Drive Electronics
PATA=Parallel Advanced Technology Attacment

And as already pointed out, it is the mechanical parts that make hard drives slow, not the interface.

No one cares, and it makes me cry every time people post this kind of topic without caring the slightest bit about the difference, no matter how many times you want or try to explain

 

[YoshiSato]

Originally posted by: MrToilet
So I'm in the market for a new HD, as I have already filled up the 2 IDE drives (80 Gb and 120 Gb) that I have.

My question now is whether I should buy a SATA drive, or another IDE drive. I have no more IDE connections on my motherboard, so I would have to buy a PCI IDE controller (~$10-15) in addition to the IDE drive.

Is there really a performance difference or anything between the two types? There are some killer deals right now on both kinds, so I'm not sure.

This is the simplest SATA vs PATA question there is.

Get a SATA hard drive since your rig can't support anymore PATA drives.

Just hope your mobo supports SATA and there are good drivers for SATA support.

If you use the SATA as a secondary drive and not the boot drive installation will be very very simple.(It can be a dog to get Windows to install on a SATA hard drive at times)

 

[MrToilet]

Sorry, yeah, I figured I was going to have to buy an SATA HD. I guess the simple version of my question now is whether I can just move the data from the old PATA drive to the new SATA drive and have all the programs, games, shortcuts, etc work, and not have to reinstall everything.

 

[swamyg1]

wouldn't it make much more sense to use your new SATA drive as your system drive???

 

[tvfreakazoid]

Originally posted by: DanDaMan315

Originally posted by: Xanis
Yes, there is a big difference between IDE and SATA. SATA is a helluvalot faster than IDE. Before you buy, just make sure your motherboard supports SATA.

Partly right, mostly wrong. SATA has the potential to much faster, however modern hard drives can definitely not max out the bus speed IDE 133. So really in terms of speed there is no difference.

How about sata 2?

 

[tvfreakazoid]

Originally posted by: Insomniak
Not enough performance difference between SATA and IDE last time I looked to justify any extra expense, but since prices are pretty much the same these days, might as well go SATA.

How about sata 2?

 

[John]

Hi nub.

SATA 2, or SATA II is a feature set. SATA 3G is the new speed interface and may include some of the SATA II feature set.

http://techrepublic.com.com/5100-10880_...002484.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=tr#

On paper they may be faster, but real-world gains over an identical IDE drive are minimal.

 

[bob4432]

i can't believe people still think sata hdds are faster when compared to the same model in pata flavor just because of the interface. wake up people, you are suffering from the placebo effect.

to the op, since you are out of pata ports, just get a sata as the performance will not be an issue, just so you don't have to spend more $$$ on a pci ide controller.

 

[stevty2889]

Originally posted by: MrToilet
The question I have is this: Is there a way to easily make this my secondary drive? Right now I have essentially all my Windows apps, backup documents on C: (60 GB Seagate PATA), and all my non-Windows applications,games, etc. on D: drive (120 GB PATA Seagate drive). I'd like to use the new SATA drive as the D: drive- same programs, games, etc. Is there an easy way to do this, or do I need to re-install everything onto the new drive?

You can clone it over, but not just copy it. You'll have to make sure it gets the D: drive letter, or none of the programs will work. If it gives it a differant drive letter, you can change it with windows using disk management. It will also end up having a 120gb parition since you are cloning a 120gb drive, so you'll need another program to resize the partition if you want the drive to be one partition after cloning.