SATA - worth it?

A

angrybusdriver

Gawd
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Jul 16, 2003
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Are SATA drives really worth it? I'm pretty new to them. From what I've heard, they're hot swappable with the right plugins. That's kind of cool... I also read that they're reverse compat with ATA 100/133- are they?

I'm looking at a whole new system and the board I'm looking at has SATA capabilities (Abit NF7-S).

I found these two drives for a pretty good price (I thought)

- Maxtor 160GB SATA 7200RPM 8mb Cache OEM, 3 yr warranty for $140 usd

and

- WD Caviar SE 120GB SATA 7200RPM 8mb Cache, 3 yr warranty for $117 usd

(I had to convert prices from cdn. I got the prices at ncix.com)

I'm pretty sure 120GB would be enough for me. I have 2 60GB WD 7200RPM disks now, but both are 2mb cache and not SATA. Would I have any problems hooking one of these drives up on the same channel as my SATA disk? Or does it work differently?

What other advantages does SATA have?

Thanks guys!
 
Yes! Serial ATA hard drives are well worth the money. As a personal preference, I would go with Western Digital. Seems like the Maxtor's have a higher failure rate from personal experience (I am a computer technician, have been most of my life). The thing is though, to really get the performance from a SATA hard drive, it is best to purchase 2 matched drives and setup them up in RAID configuration. The throughput does vary but is normally about 1/3 faster than if you use just a single SATA hard drive.

I am running 2x120GB WDs in a RAID 0 config and they just simply rock! I switched over from 2x120GB WDs on a built-in P-ATA Promise controller on a Asus P4C800-E Deluxe and I noticed a big difference right off the bat. Windows XP Professional loaded quicker and everything just runs faster than it did before.

Hope this info helps!

AceGoober
 
Ahh okay. Yeah i was kind of leaning towards the WD myself.

I don't think I have the money for a 2nd 120gb, nor do I need that much space.

Now the other question, can I mix my current 60gb ATA drive with the newer SATA drive ? Mix as in on the same channel. (Would they even be on the same channel?)

Also, is it a pain to get windows to recognize the SATA drive? I notice when I install WXP it says to hit F6 if I need to install a driver for SATA or SCSI or something - Would I have to?
 
there is no "speed" increase per se with the current application of the SATA standard, a single HDD being unable to saturate the normal ATA bandwidth, however there is a slight increase in efficiency, and a massive increase in data integrity, these add up to a slight advantage in performance with a single HDD

Read As the Disc Spins and the following 2 links ;)
 
I do agree with Ice Czar on the "speed" increase, but I do have to disagree with the performance advantage. When I ran HDTach on a single SATA WD, it measured at about 38000Mbs. When I setup a RAID 0, my rates jumped to almost 49000Mbs. I will run HDTach again just to make sure I am not talking out of my butt and post the results here.

As far as mixing both drives on the same controller, you could do that with a P-ATA to S-ATA adaptor, but I do not recommend that at all. You can run the P-ATA drive and S-ATA drive at the same time without any problems (At least, I have not had any nor have my customers).

For the F6 function during Windows 2000 or XP install, you will need to create a SATA floppy driver disk either using one from the manufacturer of the motherboard (not all have this option though the BIOS does support booting off the S-ATA controller) or go to the following link to get the Intel version of the driver disk:

http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts-df/Product_Filter.asp?ProductID=951

You will have to choose what OS you are running and then choose option 8 for the downloadable executable that will create the disk for you. Make sure that you have a good, verified error free, formatted floppy disk ready.

AceGoober
 
why not look into Seagate's SATA line-up?
they are the quietest Hard Drives on the market right now...
 
Originally posted by AceGoober
but I do have to disagree with the performance advantage.
Click to expand...

acutually I carefully worded my reply to exclude RAID 0 :p
where it is possible to saturate a typical ATA's channel bandwidth, and where the added throughput of a "real" SATA enabled chipset (150MB/s) can be employed (its typically less than that but still more than the typical throughput of an PATA dual channel RAID 0 on a 32bit 33MHz PCI bus)

;)

of course a 64bit whatever MHz PCI bus, with a multi channel RAID array (4>12) will kill any onboard SATA RAID, but then the trick would be finding an ap to do it :p

a Multi user environemnt is normally hard pressed to dent something like that

the real point of my post was to point out that a single HDD cant push either bandwidth, AND that SATA is MUCH better choice for data integrity ;)
 
Originally posted by ST|FFY
why not look into Seagate's SATA line-up?
they are the quietest Hard Drives on the market right now...
Click to expand...

I respectfully disagree. I've heard the Seagates and they are no doubt QUIET as heck, but NOT quieter than the new Samsung SATAs like the one in my sig. I swear. You CANNOT HEAR the Samsung.

But again, purely subjective. ;)
 
I am not going to make noise an issue with my new system... It's too much trouble, and I can handle a loud machine, just as long as I can cover it up a bit.

Thanks for all the great suggestions guys.
 
Aside from the performance pov, if your motherboard has sata connector, might as well buy sata drives. I think all future motherboards will have sata connectors or maybe sata only connectors. You will then be able to use your drive in the future.
 
Of course, SATA 2 is around the corner. SATA has a 300mps peak vs current 150mbs. SATA is able to execute more then one command at a time, current HDD's can only process one command at a time and it also has command rate queying.


Current HDDS are very inefficent in how they access data. Lets say a command to access a section of data comes in thats located on the far edge of the plater. A second command comes in and wants a peice of data near the center of the platter.

Curren't HDD's take commands as they come, so the read heads would first go all the way out to the edge of the platter and the come back and do the second section of data near the middle. This is waste of time and reduces the efficenty of datat transmission.

With SATA 2, the drive figures out which is the best way to retrieve data. Like I said, its able to excute more then two commands at a time and make the best decision on how to access data. In this case, it would first access data near the center of the platter and then move to the outside data bit. This results in much more I/O operations then current SATA or ATA drives.

In short, I would wait, I am.

I concur that MAxtor drives are complete POS. I"ve seen so many drives from Maxtor fail at my show its scary. I've had brand new ones from HP warranty services come in and fail within the first few minutes. Western Digitals have been nothing but rock solid for me, my 6 year old 4 gig is still running on my P2 233.
 
Whoops! Sorry Ice Czar. I re-read your reply and yes, you are correct in your statement. :)
 
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