No SATA Ports on Old Motherboard

[Xaneden]

Hey Guys,
I hope to upgrade in the near future, but until then, I need to buy a new hard drive as I'm running out of space. However, I'm slightly unwilling to buy an IDE hard drive, and would rather purchase its SATAII counterpart so that I can take advantage of the speed/technology increases once I get a new motherboard.

Until then however, I'll be using it on my existing Asus P4B motherboard from way back in 2001. It does not appear to have any SATA connectivity, and I am wondering what options I have other than buying the IDE version.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I could use a SATAII HDD on this motherboard? I know of 'IDE to SATA' converters and SATA RAID PCI expansion cards, but my knowledge of the topic is quite limited, and I'm not sure which would be appropriate, and indeed an appropriate model.

If anyone does have any suggestions, may I ask that the card/converter is not too expensive (as it's just temporary), and that it is available from Scan.

Thanks for any help you can give.

[fuddam]

just ebay sata cable - you will find loads of converters, as I did this week

[Xaneden]

just ebay sata cable - you will find loads of converters, as I did this week

Sorry Fuddam, as I pointed out, I can only order from Scan at the moment.

Also, I think I'm right in saying that a SATAII drive will scale down to SATA levels when used with a standard SATA enabled motherboard. However, can the same be said for such a converter, and if so, is there the possibility that there will be compatability problems?

[Xaneden]

Bump?

This is pretty urgent, help would be greatly appreciated.

[SourceQuench]

If I'm not mistaken you're looking for a SATA-to-IDE converter, correct?

Most of the converters for sale on the likes of the brilliant Scan are IDE-to-SATA converters (i.e. they convert and IDE device to SATA one), so you have to be careful since I believe that not all are capable of working in "reverse" (i.e SATA device to IDE connection) - plus the fact that this one has a female IDE connector, whereas you would need a male one.

I looked long and hard for a solution to this one previously, and decided against trying my luck with the cheap and cheerful converters on eBay since I value my data

Therefore if you really must order from Scan, try buying a PCI controller card - my advice would be not to go for Adaptec, since their cheap models have issues (the drivers were rubbish for me - the latest version are almost two years old and are beta) and are just rebranded Highpoint cards.

However, if you're willing to buy from somewhere else online, I would recommend you find a Promise card like this one (no, not a plug!) as you could then sell it on after or use it for more expansion if you needed.

Anyway, hope this helps, just my 2p

[Xaneden]

Thanks for the reply SourceQuench; your knowledge of the topic is much appreciated.

Unfortunately I can only order from Scan (it's my mum who'd be ordering, and she's neurotic about online ordering etc). However, I saw this card on Scan, and wondered if this would be suitable:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=260259

It certainly looks promising, but if you would, could you tell me if this would be the correct thing to get for the requirements I listed in my first post of the thread.

Thanks again,
Xaneden.

[SourceQuench]

NP mate...

Well I would've suggested the card that you found in my previous reply, but the only problem with that is that Scan have been out of stock of that model for a considerable time - I suppose that you could just double-check with them whether they ever will be stocking that item again, if so you're in luck.

One thing to note is that so-called SATAII (i.e. SATA300) drives are backwards compatible with SATA I (i.e. SATA150) so you don't generally need to worry about that (sometimes there is a jumper on the drive itself to force SATA150 operation if there ever is a problem).

One other thing I just thought of, you could snag an external enclosure for your SATA disk which would mean you could then plug it straight into a USB port... take a look may be cheaper than a controller card - just an idea.

[Xaneden]

Thanks again for your reply SourceQuench. I'll make a quick post in the Scan forum to see if they will be ordering in that card, but your external enclosure idea sounds very promising.