Serial ATA harddrives

[Steven21]

Do Serial ATA Harddrives use the same 4 pin molex connector
As ATA 100/133 harddrives.

 

[Teq]

You would have to check the drive maker's webistes... some do, some don't.



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[Steven21]

Do i need a Serial ATA ready power supply unit, or will older or current PS Units still work?

thanks steven

 

[FO_SHO]

I have yet to see PS with integrated SATA pwr connectors. you can just buy a molex -->> SATA PWR cable at like newegg.

 

[Steven21]

VANTEC Has a Serial ATA ready PSU, Called the ION. But i
have yet to see it sold at any online or retail stores.

 

[Twitch]

I believe the Maxtor Diamond Plus 9 series SATA drives use the regular Molex connector. Of course, the Maxtor drives use a PATA to SATA converter, so they are really only a factory modified PATA drive. Seagate drives use the newer style SATA power connector, meaning you must buy a SATA power adaptor. I believe the new WD Raptor uses the newer style plug as well.

99.99999% of all power supplies on the market do not have a SATA power connector.

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[Steven21]

Are SATA HDs faster than PATA 100/133 HDS? I've heard there
just the same as PATA HDs, I though they were supposed to be faster. whats this 150MB transfer rate i keep reading about. also the seek time's still the same (8.5 ms or 9 ms)
i was hopeing they would be faster.

Ive heard The SATA WD Raptor has a 5.3 ms Seek time, But will work in a home PC, Ive heard its just for business Use. will it mount in a standard PC Case?

 

[lhgpoobaa]

150MB/sec is the maximum available bandwidth available for the drive.
Does the drive ever use it all? NO.

Performance wise SATA drives are no faster than parallel ones, or maybe a tiny bit, depending on any efficiency gains to be had with the differeing interface and electronics.

The raptor is a different beast as it spins a damn sight faster. Thus higher transfer rates and lower seek times.
And yes it will work in your home PC, and yes you can mount it in any old bay... but good luck finidng one. And bear in mind you are only getting 36Gb capacity.

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[Steven21]

To SATA or Not to SATA? Im going to be upgradeing my system soon, new Mobo,cpu,memory and HD. I was wondering if i should go with a SATA HD or an Older PATA 133 HD? (thinking of getting a WD raptor) I moslty use my PC for gameing and surfiing the web. Do i really need the faster speed of a WD Raptor? Since Standard SATA arn't much faster then PATA 133 HDs should i just go with a PATA HD?

 

[FO_SHO]

chances are you won't notice the difference between SATA and PATA. Don't sweat on getting a 133 over the 100, as it has no performance gain either. Just get a WD special edition drive as they are probably your best bet. You can get some WD raptors is you got $$ to burn.

 

[shleds]

I am just on my way out to buy the Seagate S-ATA 80g drive.

I have the ASUS P4G8X Deluxe motherboard.

I have heard some horror stories that I want to clarify, if anyone can help.

I heard that you cannot have a SATA drive as the only drive in your system, because you cannot boot from a SATA single drive, it has to be RAIDed. True or False?

I heard that some people leave a bootable CD in the CDROM for the S ATA drive to boot. True or False?

I think that they had issues fixing their BIOS to point to the right HD, but I heard that from different sources, can any one confirm those rumors?

 

[Steven21]

I hope someone can, cause I'd Like to know to. I was going
to use a SATA Harddrive as my Primary HD, But if the info in the above post is true, i'll have to go with a PATA HD, but since SATA HDs are'nt much faster then PATA HDs i guess it dosent mater.

I have a question about PATA HDs, If ATA 133 HDS are'nt Much faster than ATA 100 HDs, whats the difference between the two?

 

[shleds]

Rumors were false ... =)

THe way it works, you have to set your BIOS boot sequence properly, and it is not obivous that the Silicon RAID controller will be listed in the sequence as "SCSI Device"

I toy with both drives, a regular IDE-ATA and the S-ATA drives last night, and I was able to pick and choose the sequence.

My booting sequence is:
CDROM
SCSI Device
Disabled (IDE)
Disabled (Network)
Disabled (Floppy)

Needless to say, I don't have a floppy or an IDE drive on my system anymore.

One annoying thing though, because I don't have an IDE-ATA drive anymore, the POST Reporter tells me (it speaks when it boots) "No IDE drives detected". Although I can edit the voice message to nil, I am a bit annoyed that they would see no IDE Drives as an error, but that is just me.

 

[Steven21]

Thats good news to know, for when i start upgrading my system, Thanks.

 

[shadus]

Sata and normal ide are about the same performance wise, but realize this is the first version of sata, there are two more coming at least... and the bandwidth on those versions is much much larger... they should perform better by the time they're available.

Shadus

 

[Steven21]

Im haveing a hard time choseing a HD. i Dont know if i should get a PATA HD (with a 8Mb cache) a standard SATA HD,
or a SATA WD Raptor. Id would appreiciate Any Opinions, Suggestions, Recomendations. Thanks