Serial ATA to Parallel ATA...?

[S[H]ady]

Is there a product out there than will allow me to use a sata drive on a ata connector?

I just sent my motherboard in for RMA and got a loner board. When i tried to get my loaner board working, we realised that some how my HDD died. We want to RMA that too, but i need a drive in the mean time.
The problem that i have is, i dont want to by a drive thats not SATA but the loner doesnt have SATA (Soyo Dragon 333 Lite, real board is an A7N8X DLX).
so is there a port changer that i can use temproarily? if so where can i get one?

 

[xonik]

Nope, but there are PCI based Serial ATA controllers that run for $20-30.

 

[Parabellum]

Not sure.

Para

 

[MaJ-ReD]

As a matter of fact, I found on the internet the other day a Serial ATA to IDE converter that stated it works both ways. You can either plug the adapter board into your motherboard, or into your IDE device, and it works the same way.

I can't find it right now, I'm still looking.
Does anyone else know anything about this?

 

[Krewten®]

I does exist

Plug it in your mobo and you can connect 2 sata drives too it

Available @ IC intracom

 

[MaJ-ReD]

Wow, that is exactly what I need.
Do you know of any other places that sell it? From what I can find on that webpage, they don't sell to end users.

 

[Krewten®]

I got it as a present for a big order
But i'm in Belgium/Europe

 

[dewhite]

Are you out of PCI slots? Because I would think that a PCI adapter card would be infinitely easier to find and use...

 

[FLECOM]

Originally posted by Krewten®
I does exist

Plug it in your mobo and you can connect 2 sata drives too it

Available @ IC intracom

does that have any kind of model number or anything?

i cant for the life of me find it on that site

 

[Benny Blanco]

I would love to see a performance review of that...

Considering the onboard silicon image controller chips mostly run through the PCI bus, and the onboard IDE does not... It might be a nice little thing to have

here's the actual product if anyone else had difficulty finding it, but unfortunately it is NOT available from them... lol link

 

[dewhite]

See, now I thought that onboard IDE controllers still went through the PCI bus. Thus why boards that don't lock the PCI bus clock can cause data corruption when overclocking...

 

[FLECOM]

Originally posted by dewhite
See, now I thought that onboard IDE controllers still went through the PCI bus. Thus why boards that don't lock the PCI bus clock can cause data corruption when overclocking...

onboard IDE controllers are usually integrated onto the southbridge...

which is technically on the PCI bus essencially... so yes, your pci bus speed will screw with your southbridge

if your board and/or chipset has a block diagram, you can see where everything attaches to...

 

[Ice Czar]

make that every IDE bus Ive ever seen is attached to the PCI bus \ Southbridge, even my Tyan K8W which has 3 seperate PCI buses, dual PCI-X (AMD-8131 Chipset) and a legacy 32bit 33MHz PCI slot (AMD-8111 I/O Hub) which also controls the IDE\ATAPI with a maximum throughput of 133MB/s

you might be able to get in the way back machine and find a different architecture in the days of ISA \ EISA though, not sure
but even then I think is was the same (just slower)

EDIT >

PCI IDE Bus Mastering
Overview and History of the IDE/ATA Interface

In terms of its basic operation, the IDE/ATA interface is fairly straight-forward, and also reflects its origins as an extension of the ISA system bus

 

[Benny Blanco]

I was basing my statement off the diagrams I've seen, which I wonder now if they are simply incorrect???

http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=14

For example, the very first one at the top, a very old chipset, the Apollo KLE133 shows that the PCI slots are sort of independent of the IDE...

... but now that I think about it, so are the USB, sound and ethernet, which I guess are all definitely on the PCI bus as well, right?

Woe to me for posting misinformation!!

OK so that's cleared up for me I guess, but what about the K8T800? Is this not clearly showing that the IDE (and the onboard audio) is moved off the PCI bus?

By the way I was never able to find a good nForce2 diagram anywhere.

 

[FLECOM]

no even on those VIA's the southbridge is on the IDE... the bold line coming off the chipset going to the PCI slots is the PCI bus, which the southbridge is attached to

in the VIA, i would guess they made up all those V this and V that stuff...

its just all on the PCI bus

 

[Ice Czar]

yup my USB Firewire and Audio all come of the I\O Hub (legacy PCI)
But I have a seperate Chipset for the 64bit PCI and of course the AGP (AMD-8151 Graphics Tunnel) but all thats stuff is HyperTransport and is thus atypical

do most server boards have a seperate southbridge for 64bit PCI?

 

[FLECOM]

no, usually there is a single southbridge attached to a 32/64bit 33mhz pci bus... the northbridge just has multiple PCI buses of varying speed...

the reason they split the busses is so you can get the maximum pci bandiwth from more than one card at the same time...

ex. gige nic and raid controller on seperate PCI buses for a file server

 

[Ice Czar]

familiar with the why,
it was just the how on "typical" 64bit boards
Im a little fuzzy on. (never owned any)

there are no AMD boards w\ 64bit PCI slots that arent also duallies

so as PCI-X is becoming more common they are still using unified southridge chips that split 23\33 and 64\133?
(like on 32\33 and 64bit\33\66MHz)

 

[Benny Blanco]

Originally posted by Krewten®
I does exist

Here's another one

It didn't get any good user reviews yet, but could be user error

Anyway for $22 shipped it's worth checking out to anyone else looking for such a product. I've seen it on newegg before but I thought it was just like a serillel adapter except bigger and uglier.

 

[Ice Czar]

hmmm...has a 4 pin molex power connector
and there is no obvious indicator to pin 1
and the SATA port is 90 degrees to the board
idiocy
looks like you only be able to use one of these per clustered onbard IDE ports

think I like the look of that other one better