Would you switch over to SATA now?

[Vince604]

Serial ATA hard drives will be coming out shortly next year though the only benefit I can really see is that it's hot swappable. It also has 150MB/s of bandwidth though even now hard drives can not even get close to 100MB/s or 133MB/s to those users with Maxtor hard drives.
So wondering if any of you people out there would switch over from your current hard drives over to the new SATA hard drives?

 

[HammerBot]

Absolutely. When they become mainstream and price drops. I would just love those thin cables. Before you know it, ATA drives are more expensive than SATA drives!

<i><b>Engineering is the fine art of making what you want from things you can get</b></i>
<A HREF="http://www.btvillarin.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=655" target="_new">My systems</A>

 

[sturm]

I am going to wait untill the price dropes and any bugs or other complications (if any) are worked out. the gain in noticable speed (if any) isnt worth the cost.

 

[itsalark]

As someone else mentioned, current drives will not even saturate the ATA100 interface. However, SATA cables allow for longer runs (approx. 1 meter?) than ATA cables (18" according to spec). SATA cables could also help improve cooling and reduce clutter within a PC.


Rich

 

[Vince604]

Ah so right now you guys are only going for the thin long cables?
So there wouldn't be any significant performance increase?

The second generation of SATA would increase it's bandwidth to 300MB/s and then 600MB/s. Would all that bandwidth just be a waste until the hard drives themselves increase the read/write speeds?

 

[halkebul]

I wouldn't get a Serial ATA hard drive unless I could pair it with a motherboard with the springdale chipset - Serial ATA integrated into the southbridge so current Serial ATA hard drives would reach their full potential.

<i>It's your world kid!!!</i>

 

[HammerBot]

The increased bandwidth of the SATA interface does not improve overall performance. Performane is limited by the drive, not the interface. So yes, most of all that bandwidth is just wasted.
But obviously, SATA is not only designed for mechanical storage. I doubt that (machnical) harddrives ever will be so fast to even get close to max SATA speeds. But theres noting in the SATA interface that prevents you from connecting all kinds of storage. E.g. a solid state disk.

<i><b>Engineering is the fine art of making what you want from things you can get</b></i>
<A HREF="http://www.btvillarin.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=655" target="_new">My systems</A>

 

[gaviota]

I wouldn't consider it today because I bought my PC about 6 months ago, so I'm not planning any upgrades in at least a year. But it if I were shopping today for a new PC then I would probably wait a couple of months to get it.

A question about SATA: will it allow you to access several drives simultaneously, like SCSI, or will it access only one drive at a time like todays ATA interface?

__________________________________________________
It's not important to know all the answers, as long as you know how to contact someone who does.

 

[flamethrower205]

I'd only switch over if they made 10K rpm sata hdd's. till then, hell no, I have a 2 hdd raid 0, planning on making it a 4 hdd setup.

"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough."
- Mario Andretti

 

[lhgpoobaa]

Raid 0+1 i hope...

<b>My Idea of a DOS attack is to stop posting helpful information at Toms Hardware.</b>

 

[flamethrower205]

Raid 0. Why, wayy too risky?

"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough."
- Mario Andretti

 

[DCB_AU]

SATA is the way to go as you will read from the replies to your post.

I'am building a new computer now. In the mean time while I wait for the SATA drives to arrive, I have fitted a ASUS P4PE Mainboard with SATA and connected a Parallel ATA harddrive. You can buy adapters that go between the SATA cable and the Parrallel ATA hard drive with no loss of original performance.

DCB_AU

 

[lhgpoobaa]

i guess you can do it.
I just think:
*4 drives... if just one fails...*


<b><font color=purple>[Rik_]</font color=purple> I wonder how many people have made their own phasechange system?
<font color=blue>[LHGPooBaa]</font color=blue> I get phasechange whenever i eat a hot chillie :lol: </b>

 

[Strife]

Even if the drives became faster you would still face the limitations imposed by the antiquated PCI bus.

Am I could be wrong but isn't it 4 bytes wide at 33 mhz?
And that is shared by my ethernet card, sound card, USB 2.0 card, two IDE channels, raid card ect.

Seems like increasing the hard drive speeds will be a waste of time as long as the data has to go through the antiquated pci bus.

 

[lhgpoobaa]

The PCI device limitation is 133Mb/sec, subtracting a certain percentage cauz nothing is perfect with overhead and all.

Most boards now have a 266mb/sec 512mb/sec or even greater for total bandwidth between the northbridge and southbridge, so data flooding there isnt going to be a problem.
And current drives are lucky to transfer data at 50mb/sec, so its going to be some time before single IDE drives are maxxing out the bandwidth.

The area where you do have handwidth trouble is multidrive raid arrays on PCI raid cards.


<b><font color=purple>[Rik_]</font color=purple> I wonder how many people have made their own phasechange system?
<font color=blue>[LHGPooBaa]</font color=blue> I get phasechange whenever i eat a hot chillie :lol: </b>

 

[Vince604]

SATA has a couple of benefits but for now it may not be an absolute hit on the market as hard drives will have to increase read/write performance in order to take advantage of the new interface.

I believe not everyone would want to switch to a new interface just because it has thinner and longer cables or because they are hot swappable. But there still will be lots of people out there who may think those two benefits are essential to as they may switch over to SATA.

 

[Vince604]

So would the best option be switiching over to a server motherboard? where the bandwidth of the pci bus is doubled?

 

[lhgpoobaa]

wel yes and no. It depends if you keep using a 32bit 33Mhz PCI card. They are by definition limited to 133mb/sec

you really need a card capable of 64bit/66mhz to use the special PCI slots and gain that extra bandwidth.

<b><font color=purple>[Rik_]</font color=purple> I wonder how many people have made their own phasechange system?
<font color=blue>[LHGPooBaa]</font color=blue> I get phasechange whenever i eat a hot chillie :lol: </b>

 

[finch7]

Does any one know of any 64bit/66Mhz PCI SATA/ATA raid cards?

 

[Oracle]

Please excuse my ignorance!
I'm just asking this so I would understand.
But how would a 64bit/66Mhz PCI card provide more performance if the PCI bus is still 32-bit wide and running at 33Mhz?
Or maybe I just missed something in the thread!

<font color=red>That was my two cents!</font color=red>
<font color=blue>Now I'm broke!</font color=blue>

 

[lhgpoobaa]

Because we are talking about two differnt sections or busses.

There is the main northbridge to southbridge bus. On modern chipsets this ranges from 266Mb/sec max bandwidth up to 1Gb for some of the more fancy buses. This bus handles ALL info flow from North to south and back, so it must be big and wide.

Then you have the smaller individual paths to each discrete PCI device, be it 64/66 or 32/33.

So while your modern KT400 has a N to S bandwidth of 512mb/sec, the bandwidth to each PCI device is still only 133. And if you put 4 15k scsi hard drives on a PCI raid card you are very likely to swamp that 133mb/sec limitation.
Thus the need for a dual cpu board and their fancy high bandiwdth 64bit/66mhz PCI slots.


<b><font color=purple>[Rik_]</font color=purple> I wonder how many people have made their own phasechange system?
<font color=blue>[LHGPooBaa]</font color=blue> I get phasechange whenever i eat a hot chillie :lol: </b>

 

[flamethrower205]

It ok, next board will be a quad proc hammer board w/ PCI-X hehehehehehehe.

"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough."
- Mario Andretti

 

[hartski]

I'll switch to using the SATA cables but not the HDD. Got no cash to shell out. If there was a adapter for IDE to SATA I'll use the cabled definitely. Not even rounded IDE cabled can beat SATA cables.

 

[finch7]

Anbody know of any ATA raid cards that support 64bit/66Mhz? How about reviews?

 

[Lamoni]

I'll switch to using the SATA cables but not the HDD. Got no cash to shell out

I wouldn't even do it if I did have the cash. SATA isn't worth replacing any Hard drive. But if you are already in the market for a new HD, then going with SATA might be a good choice, but with the SATA adapters it isn't that big of a deal.

I'll still be happy when SATA saturates the market. I hate the other cables because I seem to always have a Zip drive or something else that has the connection 'upside down' compared to the rest and it is a pain to twist those wide cables. Plus I can't use the drive bays in the top of my case because the cables don't reach.