Sata & Ata

[sailpog]

Quick question:
Are SATA and ATA the same thing? (ie. would a sata hard drive work with a Mobo thats said to support ATA)

 

[gmanych]

Pata= IDE
Sata= Serial ATA

Parallel ATA = IDE
Serial ATA = Sata

 

[Skypacer]

The communication port on the back of ATA and SATA drives differ vastly. However, there are motherboards out there that can support both. The question is does the mobo in question that supports ATA drives also supports SATA drives. In short, you will need SATA ports to connect a SATA drive. There are no converters that will allow you to plug an ATA drive into an SATA port or visa versa.

 

[bmxfreakrider]

uhh, yea there is and is.

 

[Skypacer]

Christ, you're kidding me. Seems like anyone who'd use something like that is guilty of poor planning when building their system.

 

[sailpog]

well no, someone who has a nice build but just needs to support a a sata drive...

 

[Skypacer]

In that case, wouldn't it be better to use somethime like a SATA RAID PCI Controller Host Card Adapter or a SATA II 3.0Gbps PCI Express Host Card? At least that way you would be able to enjoy all of the features of the SATA drive (including the speed and the hot swapping capability) without having to worry about a device that doesn't fit securly, is flimsy and prone to breakage, and may or may not work.

 

[Lokolo]

Or just get a motherboard with onboard SATA...?

 

[Skypacer]

That's what I was saying at the beginning, Lokolo. If you want to use SATA dives, make sure that either the motherboard you have or the motherboard you're getting supports SATA. That is the best possible solution. The PIC cards I mentioned would be used if you wanted to put SATA dirves in your current system where the motherboard doesn't have SATA support on board. But there is no way I would use those converters that plug into the hard drive on any system the I would build for myself or a customer. They're too cheap and worthless.