What exactly is the benefit and the difference bwtween ATA and SATA Hard Drive?

mdaniel73

Junior Member
Jan 15, 2005
23
0
0
SATA interface is faster (150 v 133) although no drives can actually sustain either speed yet. The biggest advantage is no more jumpers and no more pain in the ass wide cable.
 

Quasmo

Diamond Member
Jul 7, 2004
9,630
1
76
Originally posted by: mdaniel73
SATA interface is faster (150 v 133) although no drives can actually sustain either speed yet. The biggest advantage is no more jumpers and no more pain in the ass wide cable.

Raptor nuff said
 

mdaniel73

Junior Member
Jan 15, 2005
23
0
0
Originally posted by: Quasmo
Originally posted by: mdaniel73
SATA interface is faster (150 v 133) although no drives can actually sustain either speed yet. The biggest advantage is no more jumpers and no more pain in the ass wide cable.

Raptor nuff said

I just looked it up. It'll burst @ 150 but sustained tops out in the 70's.
 

stevty2889

Diamond Member
Dec 13, 2003
7,036
8
81
Right now there isn't really any major benifit to SATA. While the interface has a slightly faster capability(ata150) compared at ata133 of PATA drives, hard drives still aren't quite fast enough to even max out an ata100 interface. So basicly at this time, the only real benifit is the smaller cable, although the connectors are a bit fragile..I broke one on one of my raptors. Fortunatly it still works...

Yeah, raptors can be a tiny bit faster at some things, but for most people they hold no real advantage. Slight advantage for load times, or if working with large files for photo/video editing, but thats about it.
 

invalidiuser

Banned
Aug 29, 2003
437
0
0
Originally posted by: Quasmo
Originally posted by: mdaniel73
SATA interface is faster (150 v 133) although no drives can actually sustain either speed yet. The biggest advantage is no more jumpers and no more pain in the ass wide cable.

Raptor nuff said


My Ultra320 74gb 15k SCSI Seagate Cheetah......Nuff said
 

SUOrangeman

Diamond Member
Oct 12, 1999
8,361
0
0
I knew some SCSI fiend would show up eventually. Anyway, ...

Keep in mind that the we are currently in the first generation of SATA. The advantages, right now, appear to be minimal. Thankfully, SATA performance is just as good as ATA, so early adopters aren't seeing a drop in overall performance. As the second generation of SATA nears, there will come some more interesting features, as well as a speed bump across the interface. Hot-plugging and hot-swapping will allow users the option of powering down and removing drives while maintaining system integrity and uptime. NCQ/TCQ support for efficient transfers should make systems feel a little smoother. Daisy-chaining will allow users to have fewer SATA ports, but support more devices. (Daisy-chaining is a good reason why the speed of the interface will be numped up. Sure, a lone device may not max out th allowable bandwidth. As you add more devices to the same controller, you'll need that extra headroom.) Finally, using the common interface between SATA and Serial-Attached SCSI will ultimately eliminated special cables for this device and a different cable for that device. We will finally be able to use one cable standard regardless of the technology behind it.

-SUO
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
39,620
9,469
136
Originally posted by: stevty2889
Right now there isn't really any major benifit to SATA. While the interface has a slightly faster capability(ata150) compared at ata133 of PATA drives, hard drives still aren't quite fast enough to even max out an ata100 interface. So basicly at this time, the only real benifit is the smaller cable, although the connectors are a bit fragile..I broke one on one of my raptors. Fortunatly it still works...

Yeah, raptors can be a tiny bit faster at some things, but for most people they hold no real advantage. Slight advantage for load times, or if working with large files for photo/video editing, but thats about it.

And last time I checked, ATA drives were quite a bit cheaper, so that's what I bought. Besides, I have loads of 80 wire IDE cables, all ribbon. I'm pretty good at keeping them (and my other cables) tidy in my cases with a twist tie or two.