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The superseding of PATA

Zenoth

Zenoth

Diamond Member
I finally got my new system (well, the main components at least so far, being the new Motherboard, Memory and CPU, the rest will come later), and I had basically been "out of the loop" of new technology since the past three years or so (my current system in my signature was bought during the holidays of 2007, with the sole exception of the graphics card which I bought later on), and before buying the new Motherboard I of course looked at all the information I could on the model I wanted.

I ended up buying the ASUS P8P67 Pro (revised B3 version). When I looked at the features I realized soon enough (and thanks for that, or else I'd been caught off guard about it at the last moment) that there's no Parallel ATA support on it, at all, zero. Well the thing is that SATA arrived many years before I bought my current system back in 2007 (SATA came in around 2004 I believe?), but I never really noticed that the superseding of the PATA interface by SATA would happen that fast over the past three years (when I bought my current system most "new" Motherboards back then still supported PATA).

Now it's fine, I got myself a single SATA drive, brand new of course, even though my current "obsolete" PATA drives still work, and it feels strange I must say, to be "forced" (somehow) to move on to a new technology and leave another behind that's finally been superseded (at least mostly by now I'd guess, on new and perhaps top-line Motherboards), mostly because one of the two PATA drives I have is still quite new (bought it only four months ago to replace a malfunctioning one) and I have to put it to rest already. Now of course there's no biggie, I got my OEM SATA DVD drive for a cheap price (bran new, at a retail store) and it's alright...

But I admit it, I'm still surprised by how fast PATA seem to go away, or perhaps it's just that I realize it now that I'm finally upgrading my computer after three years of indifference concerning most technology changes. How do you guys feel about the superseding and inevitable disappearance of the "good ol'" PATA interface? Have any of you ever had to "replace obsolete" components due to lack of support of specific technology/standards in favor of new ones for your computer upgrade?
 
This has always been happening and it's even worse with software (applications, drivers & OSes). SATA supports NCQ and with better smarts in the controller & performs more like SCSI in a multi-tasking/multi HDD environment.
 
While your system 3 years ago may have supported both SATA and PATA, the transition was happening even earlier than that. You should have transitioned when you bought your last system, I don't see how you were caught by surprise. Still have a PS2 mouse and keyboard? 😉
 
...and what is stopping you from buying a PATA PCI/e card?

SATA was finalized back in 2003(8 years ago), PATA was long overdue to be replaced.
 
I still have several perfectly good PATA DVD burners in the parts bin, so I'll lament the waste when I toss them in the trash after my next upgrade.

Not to mention a few smaller IDE drives -- it's hardly worth putting a 120 GB HDD in FS/FT with what the shipping costs these days.
 
You bought a PATA drive four months ago?!? Had no idea they even made those anymore.

Thank god PATA is gone. All those messy ribbon cables and that slave/master crap.
 
StinkyPinky said:
You bought a PATA drive four months ago?!? Had no idea they even made those anymore.

Thank god PATA is gone. All those messy ribbon cables and that slave/master crap.
Click to expand...

I miss PATA, the slave/master thing never bothered me, and the cables IMHO are infinitely better. Even the SATA ones with the metal latch thingy aren't great, I've had a few break on me. And I've had a few of the regular ones with no latch come out from simply moving my case from my car to my room. The cables are far too delicate.
 
When I built my new 1156 rig in December, I intentionally bought a board that would support PATA. I only had one DVD drive to use with it...but I wanted to use it in the new build.
I also have an old WD 80 Gb HDD that I could use with it...but I'm not too sure it'd be worth the headaches. 😛
 
How on earth is anyone remotely knowledgeable in computer technology surprised by this? SATA was introduced 8 years ago. Heck, we're up to 3rd generation SATA which basically makes PATA a great-grandpa in computer years.

Don't be surprised when your next motherboard doesn't have a PCI slot or PS/2 ports, there are many new ones even today that don't have them.
 
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I bought an HP DVD Burner 1140i around 6 months ago since I knew it was the last chance at getting one.

Just a month ago I was at a family friends house who has an 8-9 year old PC whose IDE DVD drive broke. I went looking for that exact same DVD drive and found it was no longer availabel at any retail chain (Best Buy, Frys) althought its still listed on the HP website for $50, which is a tad high when you can buy the SATA equivalent for $20.

Both PATA Optical drives and hard drives are really on their last leg while everyone in my family still is running them with Windows XP era machines.

Fortunately I upgraded everyone within the last couple of years so they will be fine until XP support expires in 2014.

You can still find some "new" motherboards that support them, but you want native PATA controller support. I've heard bad things about bolted on JMicron PATA controllers and such.
 
Zenoth said:
But I admit it, I'm still surprised by how fast PATA seem to go away, or perhaps it's just that I realize it now that I'm finally upgrading my computer after three years of indifference concerning most technology changes. How do you guys feel about the superseding and inevitable disappearance of the "good ol'" PATA interface? Have any of you ever had to "replace obsolete" components due to lack of support of specific technology/standards in favor of new ones for your computer upgrade?
Click to expand...

i think i was more attached to SCSI.

they're both great older technologies. computers using them have been used to create most of the movies and art-work that we admire - what's not to like ?

i read that novelist Jonathan Franzen works in a room with an old Dell (using PATA) and the Ethernet card has an adapter glued in - and sawed off - to keep him from connecting his work machine to the Internet.

i sort of gave up on PATA and SCSI in 2004 when it became obvious that SATA was much faster - and that was SATA-1.
 
I believe there are external drive cases with adapters for P ATA drives.
There are many P ATA to sata adapters, do not know which work.
 
Zenoth said:
But I admit it, I'm still surprised by how fast PATA seem to go away, or perhaps it's just that I realize it now that I'm finally upgrading my computer
Click to expand...

IDE/PATA has been going away for some time. One of the things that kept IDE/PATA alive was windows xp not supporting SATA on the boot disk.

Vista and widows 7 both support sata on the boot drive, so look for IDE/PATA to just fade away.

When I got into computers in the mid-1990s, PATA was not called PATA, it was called IDE. Some people call the port IDE, some people call it PATA. I think it all depends on when the person was introduced to hardware. PATA might be the proper name now, but it looks like an IDE port to me.

Just as SATA replaced PATA, so something else will replace SATA, its just a changing of the times.
 
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As you guys have said, SATA1 became widespread 2003-ish and the two coexisted for many years until now. From a consumer standpoint, I guess once optical drives transitioned to SATA, there was no reason to keep ATA133.

WinXP is fine with SATA, it just isn't as automatic as with Vista/7.
 
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