Why buy IDE ATA
hey i dont know if you know yet but you can get SATA drives now
upgrade your drives trust me its worth it, if you have to add new HD's that is
i have SATA raid controller on my pc with two serial ata 80 gb hard drives
very very very very fast and reliable

As well said by wutske, as of today, having a SATA does not automatically mean superiority to PATA. What affects more the transfer rate of a hard drive are: density (i.e., capacity per platter) and rotational speed. There is currently no hard drive unit existing yet that can even reach the max nominal performance of ATA133 interface's 133Mb/sec. It is exactly which HDD you have picked up, that decides the speed, and not the type of interface.

Having said that, SATA will show significant advantages in some usage scenario. As pointed out by some above, RAID is an example; otherwise it is a heavily multitasking environment that needs the help of SATAII's NCQ feature.

It is true, forward looking, that PATA will be gradually be obsoleted and eventually eliminated, by which time you will probably find new drives -- with newer hardware designs -- only launched with SATA I/F.

At the end of the day, what defines the optimal solution is, for what purpose you
are building your system. For example, if it is a dedicated system to steaming video over your home network all day long, you may want to go with drives with higher transfer rates. As an opposite example, if the system is to be placed in your living room, you will want to choose a drive with lower rotational speed, thus less noisier, less heat, even at the cost of slight speed down.

Well, my real point was: you don't have to be too disappointed just because you have picked up an PATA drive.

I should have waited before I bought that hard drive. I basically rushed this PC building process and didn't even begin to build it until weeks later after I got the parts already. Well, I put up the hard drive for bids on eBay yesterday. Should I take it down?

I really want to know if there will be any improvements in speed or performance. This is what the computer will be used for:

1. Internet
2. Gaming - probably not the very fast paced games, but my sister did want to play Counter Strike on it I think...
3. Playing movies and music
4. Some DVD and CD burning
5. Transferring data from hard drive to hard drive from time to time for backup purposes (don't like DVDs that much )

So is it worth it for me to get a SATA drive? If not, I will keep my ATA hard drive then. If it's helpful, the hard drive is a Seagate 120GB IDE hard drive. Didn't buy a bigger one as I didn't see that my brother or sister will need it. But if the SATA is worth it, I will look for a bigger HDD like 200GB or more. SATA RAID is supported by my motherboard, but I do not wish to create a RAID setup.

I will look into getting the rounded IDE cables, but it's probably not needed. The case I have it kind of big...I think it's a 9 or maybe 11 drive bay case. It's the case with the Halo insignia on the see through side cover

Recommendation - Conclusion
Seeing what you plan to do with your PC, my personal conclusion is that there is no real reason you must look for another drive than the mentioned Seagate 120GB drive. (I beleive there are currently two variations of Seagate 120GB/PATA models on the market; the Barracuda 7200.7 Plus or the Barracuda 7200.9 - do you know which one it is?) To add to this conclusion is the reputation of Seagate drives' quietness --- an important factor, but often left behind.

Reference
Having my conclusion said first, here are some consideration points for you to make up your mind finally.



For the above use, there wouldn't be any improvement even if you have changed for a "faster" drive. These application simply do not require higher transfer rates than what most drives available on the market today provides.



For this one, let's make an example:
The time you would need to read 20GB of data using drives with a transfer rate of 58MB/sec and 44MB/sec are respectively approx. 5.9 minutes and 7.8 minutes. (Note: In reality, there are a lot more factors to take into consideration when it comes to file copying, so I cited read performance to make the comparison simpler.)

So the consideration point here is:
how often would you do such operation, do you really need it and if yes, how much in $$$ would you value such difference?

Some Backup Data
As mentioned in previous posts, an HDD isn't fast just because it has SATA.
In the benchmark results linked below, you will even find that a Segate 400GB PATA is faster than the same hardware based 400GB SATA version. The Seagate 400GB models (the Barracuda 7200.9), though, is faster than its predecessor Barracuda 7200.7 Plus series, regardless of interface.

HDD Benchmarks [from Tom's Hardware]

I have the Barracuda 7200.9. Should have waited again...Have to cancel the auction with one bidder on it

OK, I will stick with this HDD then. The main reason I was leaning towards SATA at the end was the fact that I will be adding 2-3 more IDE hard drives (that already had data on them) and a DVD burner.

For the ATA controller cards, I always thought that they were used to support higher hard drives. I have one on my old PII machine since it couldn't see 120GB (or maybe 160GB) hard drives. Just want to clear this up and we can wrap this up...So can I use this ATA controller card just for IDE slot "expansion"? Guess it's worth it if it just occupies one PCI slot and offers two more IDE ports. I'll just yank it from the old PC...

Thanks.

Greetings, Happy New Year,


Yes, it should work fine.

The Barracuda 7200.9 PATA models are one of the latest series on the market; the performance of your 120GB model is basically the same as the 400GB model, only with less capacity so you should be happy with it.

Happy New Year...

Installed Windows on it this evening. Ran into some freezing problems at first, but got it sorted out. Everything looks good now...just in time for the New Year I'll use that old ATA controller card from the old desktop.

Thanks again for all the help...

hardrive questions
Adding More IDE Ports In Computer

I have multiple hardrives I have collected. I want to put them all in the same case so to speak, I've seen 8bay hardrive usb enclosures, & it doesn't look all that hard to build one. But the problem I thinking of is the bridgeboard. I can build a custom case & add the approiate power supply, but the hd enclosure case I'm using as a model to build from, I can't see how the board is built, I know it goes from the hardrive, to a board then converts to usb, & then the usb plugs into your computer. The one I saw is @ cyberguys.Com. I know it has 4 ide cables plugged into this board, it also had other pictures to see more than just 1 pic, but it doesn't say who makes it. I want to built a custom board to handle as many hardrives I want, I know I have more than 8 hd's, so if any body can give me the 411 on where to search on how one looks like (the bridge board), or where I might be able to buy one so I can try & custom build a board myself, all help will appreciated. Please send any info to dallasdawg1119@hotmail.Com

-question by smitty