Confused about SATA....please help

[arman01]

hey guys,

im going to buy a new HDD today as ive no space left on my current Maxtor 40Gb ATA HDD...im going to buy a SATA HDD, and my motherboard supports them, but i need to know if:

1) i can use this SATA HDD (WD 160Gb 7200RPM SATA) in conjunction with my Maxtor ATA HDD without reformatting and reistalling windows>

2) If i can reformat windows and only use the new SATA HDD (AS in, is there any difficulty in installing a copy of windows on just one SATA drive..drivers etc..) ?

3) Is there any actual speed gain between ATA and SATA?

Thanks

[DamienThorn]

hey guys,

im going to buy a new HDD today as ive no space left on my current Maxtor 40Gb ATA HDD...im going to buy a SATA HDD, and my motherboard supports them, but i need to know if:

1) i can use this SATA HDD (WD 160Gb 7200RPM SATA) in conjunction with my Maxtor ATA HDD without reformatting and reistalling windows>

2) If i can reformat windows and only use the new SATA HDD (AS in, is there any difficulty in installing a copy of windows on just one SATA drive..drivers etc..) ?

3) Is there any actual speed gain between ATA and SATA?

Thanks

1) Yes
2) Yes, though you'll have to have the SATA drivers on a floppy when you install windows
3) Debated by some, but there isn't really a noticable speed gain until you hit 10K RPM drives

http://www.mentallyretired.com/h3/index.cfm/u_116071 (http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/user_summary.php?u=116071)

[arman01]

thanks for your quick reply!

Right now im deciding between an 8MB ATA and a 2MB SATA....both 160GB and both 72000RPM..

which one would u recommend?

[Black Ghost]

thanks for your quick reply!

Right now im deciding between an 8MB ATA and a 2MB SATA....both 160GB and both 72000RPM..

which one would u recommend?Personally, I'd recommend the 8mb... since they're both 7200rpm, you probably won't see that much of a speed boost with the SATA... and the 8mb cache is better than the 2mb.

[DamienThorn]

Personally, I'd recommend the 8mb... since they're both 7200rpm, you probably won't see that much of a speed boost with the SATA... and the 8mb cache is better than the 2mb.

QFT. The only "big" deal with SATA is that it makes cable management easier.

http://www.mentallyretired.com/h3/index.cfm/u_116071 (http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/user_summary.php?u=116071)

[tiraides]

QFT. The only "big" deal with SATA is that it makes cable management easier.
... and that each SATA drive runs on its own channel instead of having to share a channel with another (optical or hard) drive.

Also -- to answer question two -- a majority of motherboards today that have SATA connections can support SATA without need of the SATA disk. Often the disk is used to set up the SATA RAID drivers. If you have an older motherboard (as in, one that was made just after SATA was introduced), you may need to either install a new BIOS, install the SATA drivers on the floppy disk, or both.

For question three: today's drives have a minimum cache size of 8MB (the new Maxtor DiamondMax 10 drives have 16MB caches, but only for 200GB or larger-sized drives). Regardless of any speed differences (the new Maxtor drives go virtually toe-to-toe with the 10K Raptor drives in some benchmarks), getting a 2MB cache drive would be a step backwards at this point.

Maybe this page (http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/op/cache.html) can explain hard drive cache better....

[arman01]

thanks a lot for the replies guys!

ill prolly just get an ordinary ATA WD 160GB with 8MB then.....

i was wondering if i can run both HDD's off the same ATA/IDE channel, and whether i can put my current drive as slave and the new one as master..

[Russ]

o course.

Why would you get ATA133 if you can get SATA though? At this point, most new SATA150 drives are cheaper than their ATA133 counterparts.

How much are you willing to spend on a HDD?

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=930514
Go there, and skip to the Hard Drive section for some advice and links.

[arman01]

sup guys, thanks for all your replies

I ended up getting a Western Digital WD2000JB (200Gb, 7200RPM, 8MB cache) on ATA, but i haven't installed it yet.

I bought it for $AUD 130 which is like $US100

[CMAN]

hey guys,

im going to buy a new HDD today as ive no space left on my current Maxtor 40Gb ATA HDD...im going to buy a SATA HDD, and my motherboard supports them, but i need to know if:

1) i can use this SATA HDD (WD 160Gb 7200RPM SATA) in conjunction with my Maxtor ATA HDD without reformatting and reistalling windows>

2) If i can reformat windows and only use the new SATA HDD (AS in, is there any difficulty in installing a copy of windows on just one SATA drive..drivers etc..) ?

3) Is there any actual speed gain between ATA and SATA?

Thanks

Yes,but not with Win 98 or ME because SATA is not supported. For storage it will not be a problem.

No problem with windows except 98 and ME.

Yes if you use the 16 mb Cache SATA drive because of the cache.