What is needed for SATA?

[Mrvile]

I don't know much about hard drives, and all the SATA drives I find are OEM. I know you need a data cable, but what else is needed?

 

[WildViper]

Not an expert here, but I just bought a PSU and it had a SATA Power connector....maybe??

 

[Rike]

Mobo that supports SATA. Almost all mobos made in the last 9-12 months support SATA.

 

[dnuggett]

Can you run a SATA HD and two IDE HDs at the same time?

 

[Mrvile]

Ok my friend told me:

1. SATA compatible motherboard
2. A power supply with SATA connector (or an adaptor if it doesn't have it)
3. Data cable

 

[Rike]

Originally posted by: dnuggett
Can you run a SATA HD and two IDE HDs at the same time?

If your mobo supports it and you have enough power from your PSU, yes.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

The motherboard doesn't have to be SATA compatible. You can buy a SATA PCI card, assuming you have a spare PCI slot available.

It would really only be adviseable for adding extra HD capacity though since the first generation of SATA doesn't gain you all that much over IDE (except thinner cables for better airflow).

 

[Intelman07]

SATA, if i am not mistaken, has 150MB/s transfer rates. Additionally, it has very thin cables, and no need for master and slave settings.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Originally posted by: Intelman07
SATA, if i am not mistaken, has 150MB/s transfer rates. Additionally, it has very thin cables, and no need for master and slave settings.

SATA has the potential to burst data at 150MB/s, the maximum, which is actually a buffer to host speed. However, even the fastest SATA Raptors can only spin 102MB/s sustained off their platters (which is from the fastest section of the platters). An overall average would be slower than that so it's not likely you'll come anywhere close to that speed in real world usage, though sequential read tests in benchmarks can come close to doing that. Benchmarks really don't mean all that much though except for a measurement of your virtual manhood or to troubleshoot problem areas of your hard-drive components.

In the real world you're not likely to see a whole lot of difference between SATA and IDE, though 3Gb SATA may change that if and when hard-drives come out that can provide sustained read speeds that will saturate the existing SATA/IDE pipe maximums.

 

[Mrvile]

Well SATA drives ony cost like 10 more bucks, so I guess I'll be getting it for the thin cords anyway 🙂