SATA and ATA?

[quote name='2poor']can someone explain the differences between SATA and ATA for me? thank you[/QUOTE]

ATA uses IDE connectors (the ribbon cables). SATA is the new generation, offering faster transfer speeds and ease of use (no need to worry about the jumper cables) and uses a different connector. The two are not mutually compatible.
 
[quote name='greenbags125']ATA uses IDE connectors (the ribbon cables). SATA is the new generation, offering faster transfer speeds and ease of use (no need to worry about the jumper cables) and uses a different connector. The two are not mutually compatible.[/QUOTE]

so does that mean i cant use an ata and sata drive in the same computer?
 
[quote name='2poor']so does that mean i cant use an ata and sata drive in the same computer?[/QUOTE]

No, you can use both, provided your motherboard has both PATA and SATA connections.
 
[quote name='yeah-yeah']No, you can use both, provided your motherboard has both PATA and SATA connections.[/QUOTE]

thank you.
 
Older SATA drives may not be faster than current PATA drives. I bought an 80 gig SATA drive about a year ago, and both of my 200 Gig PATA drives perform as well, or better on a good day.
 
[quote name='capitalist_mao']Older SATA drives may not be faster than current PATA drives. I bought an 80 gig SATA drive about a year ago, and both of my 200 Gig PATA drives perform as well, or better on a good day.[/QUOTE]

how can you tell if a sata drive is older than another?
 
SATA I drives and PATA drives have no difference except cable size. All speed on hdds is theoretical output, and SATA don't even come close to their suggested 150MB/sec, and are comparable to the 100 and 133MB/s PATA drives. SATA II might start to improve the speeds, but I haven't seen many tests as they're fairly new, and expensive.

If you want speed in hdds, you go Raptor or SCSI.
 
[quote name='2poor']how can you tell if a sata drive is older than another?[/QUOTE]
Not quite sure. You can most likely check the drive in question at the manf.'s web page, and they will tell you when the drive in question was first maufactured. You can assume that an SATA drive will most likely perform on par with a newer PATA drive. The benefits lie in future compatibility and smaller cable size.

While SATA cables are lovely in how small they are, they're also a bane in how easily the cables can be knocked out of their sockets. Just about every time I dig through my computer, I end up pulling my SATA plugs out on accident.
 
my motherboard says

PATA 2 x ATA 100 up to 4 Devices
SATA II 4

GIGABYTE GA-K8N Pro-SLI

does that mean i could have 8 hard drives, 4 sata and 4 ata?
 
Don't you something called RAID for multiple HDDs? Of course, I don't know what I'm talking about but I remember seeing something about it and 2 HDDs in conjunction.

And a theoretical write speed of 150MB/sec? You gotta be kidding... my laptop's internal only writes at ~12MB/sec while my USB2.0 external does ~30MB/sec when I checked them using DiscBench. And my laptop is only 5 months old!:whistle2:(
 
[quote name='P0ldy']SATA I drives and PATA drives have no difference except cable size. All speed on hdds is theoretical output, and SATA don't even come close to their suggested 150MB/sec, and are comparable to the 100 and 133MB/s PATA drives. SATA II might start to improve the speeds, but I haven't seen many tests as they're fairly new, and expensive.

If you want speed in hdds, you go Raptor or SCSI.[/QUOTE]


Wikipedia is your friend:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA

There are a number of differences between PATA and SATA. Most notably are the physical differences: smaller cables, different power cables, and, best of all, NO JUMPERS. No more Master/Slave/Cable Select nonsense. Additionally, SATA drives have their own channels to themselves, so they don't have to share bandwidth.

Internally, SATA has the promise as faster throughput, but the drives haven't caught up yet. Also, SATA drives support hot-swapping and native command queueing.

You may not notice a huge difference right now, but SATA is the direction drives are moving. Would you rather have a drive that will most likely be supported on a future motherboard, or one that might be stuck with your current computer?

Not having to deal with jumpers alone is worth it for me. Everything else is gravy.
 
[quote name='capitalist_mao']
While SATA cables are lovely in how small they are, they're also a bane in how easily the cables can be knocked out of their sockets. Just about every time I dig through my computer, I end up pulling my SATA plugs out on accident.[/QUOTE]

You can get locking SATA cables to prevent this.
 
wow sata prices are really high for a strange and small amount of gigs. i think i might just go with ata unless i could find a large sata drive for a decent price.
 
A RAID is only needed for servers and things like that. Essentially, it just makes the OS see all the seperate hard drives as one.

Laptop hard drives are 5,400 RPM IDE's and reeeeaaaally tiny.

"You may not notice a huge difference right now, but SATA is the direction drives are moving. Would you rather have a drive that will most likely be supported on a future motherboard, or one that might be stuck with your current computer?"
It's not like they're going to dump support for IDE any time soon. Even if they do, drives are increasingly dropping in price and you can always set up the older drive as an external.
 
[quote name='yeah-yeah']Internally, SATA has the promise as faster throughput, but the drives haven't caught up yet. Also, SATA drives support hot-swapping and native command queueing. [/QUOTE]
From what I've read, the Nforce4 chipset is the only to support this feature, so far. And the support isn't that hot.
 
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