serial ata /raid ?

[tufreeh]

hi ...
i have a asus a7n8x mobo, a 120 gb ultra ata seagate barracuda and a 80 gb barracuda ... now my question is what is the deal with serial ata / raid controllers ? .. how do i connect my hard drives to my mobo with the supplied serial ata cables (the red ones) .. whats the difference b/w serial ata / ultra ata and raid ? .. and is there any significant increase in speed and performance .. ?

am a total n00b when it comes to this so help wud be appreciated .. thanx

 

[tufreeh]

allrite so now that i know what the two are, i dont think my drives are sata because they dont have the kind of connector that would allow the sata cables to be plugged into (only normal IDE ones) .. is there any kind of add-on card that would enable me to make use of the sata features on the board and also use my existing drives ? .. and as for the RAID option how do i go around setting it up (hardware and software-wise) .. thanx again for ur time ..

 

[ekÆsine]

i think you are missing the point tufreeh, those are just names for different interfaces. all you need to know is that each type has a max speed. faster interfaces means your device can transfer data faster. and with faster tranfer rates you also get faster access speed usually.

there is nothing to convert your ATA hard disk to SATA because it wouldn't be able to take adavantage of the extra bandwith, making something like would be useless.

all the raid help should be in your motherboard manual. in your situation i would recommend not using raid since you know nothing about it and the potentially gains for everyday uses like surfing the internet and playing games will yield little to no difference in speed. and the added security isn't all that great vs. the cost

 

[tufreeh]

thanx a lot for clearing that up guys .. i'll go along with the standard IDE cables if i find it too difficult to set the RAID option by myself ..

 

[CrashAbbott]

Hmmm,,,

MB.. help me out here,,, I have the Abit NF7-S board,, and I have a Maxtor HDD in it,,

I have the Adapter that came with the motherboard attached to my HDD that enables me to use the SATA connectors on the motherboard,,

If my drive is only 7200 Ultra,, then do I have an HDD that is only giving me 133 transfer and only looking like I should be getting 150??

You see ,, I was under the impression that the adapter that you put on the drive now utilizes the SATA chip in the MOBO and allows for those transfer rates,,

seeing as I have only one HDD at this time,, when I add a second one,, (soon),, will I then not be able to attach another adapter from ABIT,, for the NF7-S board and have my second SATA drive?

you have me wondering now???

 

[CrashAbbott]

Thanks Thanks,,

everything is so logical and clear,,, whatever was i thinking,, you know when they say some things are too good to be true!

they are!!

dang! and I am such a cautious consumer,, I wasnt watching at all on this purchase,,

and yes ,, checked on the SATA drives,, they are about $2oo bucks,,, ouch,, but maybe worth it?? I will investigate further,,

and do I need the bandwidth,,

hmmm ,,, Yes,, always need bandwidth ,,

I do video editing,, and playback,, with music inlays,, and it all sucks up space,,

I can get better, and maybe I will ,, Tax right-off and all !

*heh heh* ( never lost those anti-establishment feelings)

cheers, for ALL the good info,,,

I need more coffee,, more regularily,,

I feel so dumb!

cheers,, I am going for a pint to Mull this one over,,

Tara!

 

[ekÆsine]

Oberjaeger did you mean 40-60 megabits per second? it would be closer to about 1,000 megabits a second for a (ata133)133 megabyte a second hard disk.

CrashAbbott you don't need the extra bandwidth, you need extra space to store those big video files. basically you should go research ATA133 and see which is the most relaible. for video editting you need a drive with good access times to reduce latency so your video doesn't look choppy.

dvd video streams at about 3 megabits per second, which is extremely slow but with fragmented files you need a drive that can cache the data and read quickly. get a drive with at least an 8 megabtye buffer.

also plan to buy a hard disk cooler that screws onto your hard disk. it cost $10 but your hard drives will run much cooler and faster. speeze and vantech make them. as far as i know the vantech cooler seems to be whisper quiet and can even cool down scsi drives.

almost any ata133 drive would suite your needs. the price of scsi drives is a joke right now to most consumers. only a moron or someone who needs absolute speed like in a business environment running servers would pay for that crap.

scsi cost roughly 5x as much as IDE i think?...hmmm not really a choice then is it?

 

[Lostman]

All SATA drives come with an 8meg buffer. Comparitvly speaking, they also have the best seek times. and the data transfer rate for SATA is 150 mb/s, compared to the 100 mb/s of Ultra ATA (or whatever the latest ATA is).

Not to mention with SATA you don't need to deal with jumpers and pricing is neck and neck with ATA now.

It's a win/win situation.

 

[CrashAbbott]

Thanks for the input guys,,

I do need the speed, as editing on the fly is an issue,, and I had a scsi setup and it was great, however, the captured video was huge and disk space became a limiting factor with that machine,,

I am with Lostman though on some points, the seek times that he states are correct and the true sata drives do offer faster seek times than ata,,

I am just so used to click click click,, record,,click, click ,click,, done,,
Now knowing I could do this faster,, my hyperactive brain is yelling at me! " why didnt you read and listen !!!"

Cooling is not an issue,, the HDD coolers are great - agreed,, but they take up valuable space between components,,, not to mention that I have FIVE fans,, and that the cpu temp sits at 32,,and that the air is so cool coming out that I wear socks when working!

I will just be patient ,, deal with what I have and work to get better!

You guys have been great,, see,, never to late to learn somethin'

cheers,!

 

[Lostman]

SCSI is old news bro. Too much money, too little space and they add a lot of heat to the board.

Check this link. - 7200 RPM
- 150MB/sec. Serial ATA - 8MB Cache -8.5 ms seek time. 120gig for $160. And that's not even a deal. They run just as warm as a standard ATA, they promote case cooling with they're very thin SATA cables.

I'm not trying to sell you on it, but it's a great jump in PC storage and it's only getting better. These WILL replace SCSI. Give it time. (did I mention you can also set these in a raid array?)