Want to move to SATA, i need a pci card for it, and a good hardrive... (im new to it)

[MonkeyzOwn]

im wanting to get the benefits of sata but i dont know where to start. my motherboard is an nf7-s but has no built in sata like it says. the board has markings but i would have to do some soldering to install, but i dont wanna do that.


1) what pci card should i buy?


2) what hardrive should i buy?


3) what are the best benefits of sata?





it would help greatly if you gave me a direct link to a product, but bear in mind im on a limited budget, so dont go too expensive


thanks

 

[ullyeus]

so you want to upgrade because of the benifits....yet you dont know what they are?


Save your money, by the time you need a new motherboard it will have sata built in and sata will be maturing.

 

[Ice Czar]

the primary benefit is data integrity
http://www.lostcircuits.com/advice/sata150/3.shtml
http://www.lostcircuits.com/advice/atafaq/
easy to route thinner cables
hotswap support
and if you buy a Western Digital Raptor, a higher spindle speed


read As the Disk Spins

 

[MonkeyzOwn]

Originally posted by ullyeus
so you want to upgrade because of the benifits....yet you dont know what they are?


Save your money, by the time you need a new motherboard it will have sata built in and sata will be maturing.

i said best benifits, i knew speed was one of them, i didnt know the rest

 

[Ice Czar]

Originally posted by MonkeyzOwn
i said best benifits, i knew speed was one of them, i didnt know the rest

actually speed isnt one of them
the interface speed, doesnt translate into any performance gain in comparision to normal PATA, if a single HDD is employed, in addition in most chipsets the bandwidth is throttled back down to 133MB/s by running the SATA ports through the PCI bus (same as ATA133), the same any PCI card would do, the ICHR intel chipset being the exception.

the true performance gain is to be had with the extra rpms from using a Raptor
other SATA HDDs might as well be PATA for the realworld performance they display

interface speeds can often be misleading read that last link I supplied (As the disk Spins)
specifically
Interface Speed as Basis for Classification , but Id recommend reading all 4 inorder