SATA versus IDE

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m3trj

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Are SATA drives a lot faster than IDE drives? Is it worth the small extra, I know SATA is 150MB/sec, is this noticably faster than IDE?

Thanks in advance.
 
Yes, they are faster...but only if you set them up properly. Make sure you buy SATA HDDs that have native SATA support, and aren't just using a dumb conversion adapter. Also, a SATA PCI card will bottleneck speeds. Native motherboard support is better (with the SATA connectors right on the board).

SATA's aren't more expensive than IDE, and if you price-shop first (as you should always) you'll find them for cheaper. They last, run great, are easy to use, and create far less clutter inside the box.
 
I love them because you don't have to worry about jumping them. I have a 74 GB WD Raptor, as well as a 250 GB WD Ultra. Both being SATA. I'll never go back to IDE...unless the price is right. =)
 
I have 1 SATA and 1 IDE, as soon as I can be bothered to reinstall everything then the IDE will be gone.
 
Well, it's an 11% speed increase over ATA133 (DMA6), so if you've got properly configured ATA133 drives you won't notice a big speed increase. But SATA isn't really more expensive so if you've got native SATA support I wouldn't purchase ATA drives anymore. But I also wouldn't spend a bunch of money on drives JUST FOR an 11% speed upgrade.

In comparison, if you've got some old ATA66 drive and you upgrade to an ATA100 you get a 34% speed upgrade, or a 51% speed increase if you can use an ATA133 drive. Even the bump from ATA100 to ATA133 is a 25% increase. So upgrading your ATA drives will always result in a signifigant speed increase. I guess you have to decide if 11% is signifigant to you.

But SATA is the way of the future. I'm sure that in the future they will go faster than 150mb/second. For now their main advantage is in their ease of use.
 
So does NCQ make a difference at all to the operation of the drive? Will I notice anything?
 
canukistan_2342 said:
In comparison, if you've got some old ATA66 drive and you upgrade to an ATA100 you get a 34% speed upgrade, or a 51% speed increase if you can use an ATA133 drive. Even the bump from ATA100 to ATA133 is a 25% increase. So upgrading your ATA drives will always result in a signifigant speed increase. I guess you have to decide if 11% is signifigant to you.
Uh...these percentage increases do not directly correlate to the precentage increase of IDE to SATA.
What you're saying is like taking a 386 and upping it to a PIII, and saying the 400% increase is better than the 15% increase you'd get from upping a PIII-400 to a PIII-800.

If he had a ATA-66 drive, and he moved to SATA, his increase in speed would be nearly 130%.

You're not going to get better performance than a SATA drive by upgrading a ATA66 drive to ATA133. No. Shame on you. Go back to the statistical-distortion department from which you crawled!

canukistan_2342 said:
But SATA is the way of the future. I'm sure that in the future they will go faster than 150mb/second. For now their main advantage is in their ease of use.
1. The 13% increase in speed is only part of the advantages of SATA
2. SATA's are becoming the standard for HDDs. Most major PC manufacturers have already stopped issuing servers and even desktops with EIDE drives, instead using SATAs.
3. SATA's are more reliable, and are hot-swapable.

Lastly, the next generation of SATA drives (SATA-II) is about to come out, and sports speeds nearly twice as fast as current SATA and IDE technology.
 
Almost every newer HP/Compaq/Gateway i've come across has used a SATA HDD. Basically, when they started with the P4 530 and up, as well as the Athlon XP 3000+ and up, they were using SATA.
 
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