Why are SATA optical drives disappearing?

K

Karma

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 1, 2004
Messages
488
A few months ago there were 3 models from Plextor, plus another one that I know of from MSI . Now there's only one listed in Newegg. Is there a reason manufacturers are "pulling" them?
 
I was also wondering about this. I need a black bezel CD-RW for my new case to replace my PlexWriter in my new system. Was hoping to find a SATA drive, no luck though.
 
Of the three SATA drives out there, two were plexi's (712sa and the 716sa) For obvious reasons, the 712sa was disco'd (12x and no dual layer capability) leaving a potential 2.

Aside from cabling, I dont see where a SATA optical would be "better" than an IDE drive. By Better, I'm speaking of performance issues. Any modern burner doesnt even come to the UDMA-33 limit, much less SATA150/SATA300 speeds. If I wanted the "Hot swappability" I'd just go for an external burner via 1394 or USB. I really don't think the market demands a SATA burner yet. Besides, Plextor already has their line of external drives so I dont see why they would be too keen on introducing another hotswappable-capable drive to their lineup.

Also, burners are cheap and with the new features, the product life is measured in hamster years, why engineer two different types of burners with a shelf life of 6 months between product upgrades?

These are just off the top of my head, but I'm pretty sure it boils down to market forces and has little to do with the innovative or convenient products.
 
Bullitt said:
Aside from cabling, I dont see where a SATA optical would be "better" than an IDE drive. By Better, I'm speaking of performance issues. Any modern burner doesnt even come to the UDMA-33 limit, much less SATA150/SATA300 speeds. If I wanted the "Hot swappability" I'd just go for an external burner via 1394 or USB. I really don't think the market demands a SATA burner yet. Besides, Plextor already has their line of external drives so I dont see why they would be too keen on introducing another hotswappable-capable drive to their lineup.
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I agree, wtf is the point of a SATA optical drive? I would much rather use all my SATA ports for Hard Drives.
 
J-Mag said:
I agree, wtf is the point of a SATA optical drive? I would much rather use all my SATA ports for Hard Drives.
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Strictly speaking Optics, the only benefit I see for SATA is the cabling.

J-Mag, I'm in your boat, all my sata ports will be used for harddrives.
 
The reason there is a need for SATA drives is that the next generation of Intel platforms will have NO ide on the ICH, so unless there is an external controller that is added by board manufactures then you'll need to get SATA optical drives. I would imagine that AMD would make this switch eventually as well.... just not sure when.
 
Poncho said:
The reason there is a need for SATA drives is that the next generation of Intel platforms will have NO ide on the ICH, so unless there is an external controller that is added by board manufactures then you'll need to get SATA optical drives. I would imagine that AMD would make this switch eventually as well.... just not sure when.
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Well most SATA opticals are just IDE drives with a converter attached anyway, so if it is an issue you could always do the same with your older drive.
 
The main reason I would like to have 100% SATA is so that I'm no longer using the IDE bus for anything and I could pretty much shut it down in BIOS. Really doesn't make a difference, but I'd certainly do it if I could. The second reason is for the smaller cabling. Not a huge deal since I'm running round IDE cables like everyone else, but the tiny SATA cable is still preferable. Transfer rate wise though, your all correct - there would be no benefit. I'm only running a single HDD right now, so the port usage is a small point for me. I'm building an A/V File Server so I can rip all my DVDs and transfer my MP3s to a central location, I don't see myself going over 2 or 3 drives in my current rig.
 
Personally I think it's just time that we move away from all legacy devices. I have a feeling that legacy devices (Serial Ports, Parallel, IDE, FDD) cause a number of headaches for both chipset makers and board manufacturers. I always disable all legacy devices on my boxes except for one IDE channel used for optical devices. The sooner we make that transition...the better IMO.
 
Mysogonist said:
Personally I think it's just time that we move away from all legacy devices. I have a feeling that legacy devices (Serial Ports, Parallel, IDE, FDD) cause a number of headaches for both chipset makers and board manufacturers. I always disable all legacy devices on my boxes except for one IDE channel used for optical devices. The sooner we make that transition...the better IMO.
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I concur, and do the same with my legacy devices and corresponding bus drivers when possible.
 
I sure hope someone continues to make the SATA Opticals...I will be building a 4th system with one shortly.

2X 712SA and 2X716SA now...no real speed increase, but the cabling is nice for Modding, different colors, you can run it UNDER the motherboard (try that with an IDE), and it just results in a much cleaner look.

(Crossing fingers and wishing for a SATA lightscribe in the future)
 
My main reasons for considering SATA opticals is specifically for cable management and a cleaner look. Being able to run the SATA cable under the motheroard is very appealing.
 
Karma said:
My main reasons for considering SATA opticals is specifically for cable management and a cleaner look. Being able to run the SATA cable under the motheroard is very appealing.
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I can do that with my IDE cables... well if I get flat ones instead of these ugly round ones.
 
I don't use flat cables because they are in the path of airflow from the two 80mm intake fans. Even folded flat under the motherboard, when they come back up to go into the IDE channel they block the airflow from between the hard drives to the rest of the case.

Is anyone aware of any new SATA optical drives coming out?
 
You need extra long ones then, because I can origami up anything with a ribbon cable to help airflow.
 
i think flat ide cables are easier to work with than round ones, but i'd rather have sata cables for everything.
 
i was thinking about using the converters to covert a drive over to sata. i might just get one to test out and see if it will burn coasters.
 
Ive been trying to do the same thing ^^ (purely for cable management). Ive been through two sets of adapters, and i cant get bootable media to work right on either one. They dont like something about my nforce pro board, bootable media starts to boot then stops almost instantly :(
 
Maybe the drives aren't avaliable because they are gearing up for a next generation of Native SATA drives. At least that is what I would hope, I wouldn't use one with a converter because it just doesn't make sense. I think we'll see Native SATA drives soon.
 
Weren't the old Plextor drives just the regular ata version with an sata bridge literally bolted onto the back? I image that once people realised they could do this themselves for significantly less than the premium they were paying plextor, they decided to drop the models.
 
santaliqueur said:
i think flat ide cables are easier to work with than round ones, but i'd rather have sata cables for everything.
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that's exactly how I feel. The rounded IDE cables that come with a motherboard I always just cut off the plastic so it is flat again..
 
IanG said:
Weren't the old Plextor drives just the regular ata version with an sata bridge literally bolted onto the back? I image that once people realised they could do this themselves for significantly less than the premium they were paying plextor, they decided to drop the models.
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I don't know the reasons why they stopped, but you're right about the old ones being ata w/ a sata bridge. The drive that codegrinder posted from Newegg is a native drive, though.
 
Unfortunately that syba one is one of the two i have tried so far. I cant get it to work on bootable media for the life of me and their tech support is worthless (asked me if i had it plugged in like 6 times in bad english then ignored further emails). This could just be an issue with my board (nvraid on the nforce pro mcp controller though). The second adapter, which i just got in yesterday is this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16812156010

Its not working right either, but at least it boots some stuff on certain drives. I have yet to get ahold of their tech support as i just got it, ill keep you updated in this post

(with the 40 bucks i spent on my nec drive and the 40 bucks ive spent on adapters by now i coulda just bought a freaking plextor native :/ )
 
I cant get my 716SA to boot either even though I manually specified the drive as the 1st boot device using the SI 3132 controller on my A8N32. All I get is the blinking white underscore.
 
which SATA port is the Optical on your A32N? I had no problems with my 716SA on my P5N32-SLI...booted, OS, installed, no problems on SATA 3.
 
its on the internal Silicon image port, I cant use the nvidia as there allready in use plus the SI port is suppose to have much less problems. I succesfully burned a Windows SP2 CD after installing windows for the 1st time on this mobo.
 
interesting, i never though of switching sata ports (i have 8, only 4 filled with HDs). Thats worth a shot, although they should be the same (all nvraid). What bios settings and controller did you have enabled for those ports (raid on, raid off, etc) dgephri
 
pretty sure I just turned IDE off, no RAID, didn't even need drivers for install (no floppy hooked up, but some still need it).

Pretty sure my Boot SATA is SATA1 (or maybe 0), then SATA 2 is my second (not RAID) and my Plextor 716SA is SATA 3.
 
ill give it a shot, can you try booting an app called Hirens BootCD? I couldnt get that to work on any drive with any sata config, but it works ok with ide drives
 
I'll give it a shot tonight on my P5AD2, the P5N32 board is still waiting for watercooling to be finished. :(

Edit: 1/25/06 Hirens BootCD needs a license? I find no free download link on his webpage.
 
ah, I didn't see any links on his page, I will burn a coaster later tonight and see if I can boot.

Besides, it looks to have every single handy boot app in existence. :)
 
Hrm, well, for one thing... My mobo only has 4 SATA ports and 2 don't respond well to OCs, heh. I sure hope if Intel's next ICH and NVidia/VIA's next chipset are gonna forsake IDE ports they start improving the reliability of their SATA controllers and actually add more than four ports. I suppose when they do that, it'll be the catalyst for manufacturers and OEMs to move on to optical SATA drives even though there isn't a need for it.

As far as cabling issues, I agree with Borgschulze. If you use flat IDE cables and learn to fold them well they're really no harder to hide than SATA ones and even easier sometimes depending on the case...

SATA cables ('least the ones I have) don't bend easily at all, 'specially right by the connector. I can bend my SATA cables like origami around any corner (and they don't look half bad since they're black, came with the ASUS mobo).
 
Impulse said:
As far as cabling issues, I agree with Borgschulze. If you use flat IDE cables and learn to fold them well they're really no harder to hide than SATA ones and even easier sometimes depending on the case...
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IDE is not terrible to hide if they are folded properly, but most of the time the cables that come with motherboards are too short. I usually just end up making a couple folds to lead the cable up to the top of the case, and then sort of twist it where it connects to the optical drive.
 
Not sure how long the ones that came with my mobo are but they were long enough to fold around and under my drives (into the drive cage and out of view) then back unto the mobo right by the port (that bit is all you really see)... Then again my case is tiny, pita to work with but I kinda like it still.
tongue.gif
 
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