Upgrading to SATA

[Forbin]

I've got to of the ata133 generic IDE drives currently, and do to money issues, I usually can only upgrade in stages, so, I have 3 questions.
current machine is...

k7n2 delta 2 platinum - MSI motherboard
AMD 3200+ (or 3800, whichever one is around the 2.0 ghz range, not currently at home computer) 32bit.
1 Ghz Ram. (no, not optimized).
nvida 5500 128mb graphics card.
2 IDE drives, one 80GB, the other one reading at wrong size (fixing that tonight).

1. What drive/system performance would be expected on the change from AtA133 to SATA in accessing data from the primary drive?

2. Will say, 2 SATA drives work if I still keep a IDE HDD plugged in(if board is capable of course) or will I see some strange known compability issues?

3. Will SATA be a good choice for HDD option for upgrading motherboard/processor (probably a 64 bit AMD) in the next 6 or so months? or should I be looking towards scsi or some other newer option I haven't heard of yet? ^^

 

[slicessoul]

1. What drive/system performance would be expected on the change from AtA133 to SATA in accessing data from the primary drive?

ATA 133 speed is 133MBps, SATA speed is 150MBps while SATA2 speed is 300MBps. IMO, Their speed is just a theory.

2. Will say, 2 SATA drives work if I still keep a IDE HDD plugged in(if board is capable of course) or will I see some strange known compability issues?

If your mainboard support SATA, there won't be any compatibility issues with SATA drives (unless some article said that there's some issues between nforce mobo with maxtor hdd). You don't need any IDE HDD existence to run SATA drives, SATA drives can run independently. SATA drives can work together with IDE HDD.

3. Will SATA be a good choice for HDD option for upgrading motherboard/processor (probably a 64 bit AMD) in the next 6 or so months? or should I be looking towards scsi or some other newer option I haven't heard of yet? ^

IMO, SATA HDD technology will evolve in the first place while they will reduced the production of IDE HDD. I don't really see any benefit by investing on SCSI HDD.
Newer facilities on SATA drives are : NCQ, SATA2 transfer, 750GB capacity (for a moment, maybe in 6 months will be 1TB), Hot plug, specialized for RAID.

 

[Forbin]

cool ^^ mostly just didn't want to update drives to a system that won't be as effecient to upgrade in the future. ^^ interested only in possibly keeping one ide hdd only for extra storage for older programs that come in handy on occassion. thanks for the help =)

so, theoretically i could 'see' a drive access increase, (based on same rpm/ hdd buffers) of approx. 20-170mbs (obviously less) but shouldn't see a decrease in performance.

 

[kamel5547]

There is no reason to "upgrade" to SATA drives except if you lack IDE connectors. Most drives (7200 RPM) transfer at 90 MBps or close to that, meaning you do not saturate ATA 133. Any SATA drive may be faster or slower than you current drives depending on its individual performance, it has nothing to do with the connectors used. The only bigger scam is "SATA II" which offers even more unused transfer speeds. Just look at Toms hardware charts, youll see a mix of IDE and SATA drives at the top...

 

[Codesmith]

SATA vs PATA has no currrent performance benifits, although some fast drives are only offered in SATA versions.

PATA is definately fading away. Already some motherboard are featuring a single IDE port and maybe 8 SATA ports.

Keep using your PATA drives as long as you like, no need to upgrade simply because they are not SATA.

Just make sure all your new drives are SATA.

BTW no differnce at all between SATA 1.5 Gpbs vs SATA 3.0 Gbps, which people mistakenly call SATA I and SATA II.