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Well i have 2 ata(am i right? the ribbon cables) drives and was wondering if it would be better to buy a sata drive as ribbon cables can only take 1 command at one time(if i remember right) so should i actually see a performance increase with using sata2 as apposed to the ribbon cables? like install times etc. If so what drives would you recommend? i know lg/lite-on do great drives.
I've never noticed a difference between the two and have one IDE and one SATA...
I personally use samsung drives now, they are very short, very quiet and never had a bad burn.
The only real benefit, as far as I know, is the better airflow using the narrow SATA cable. ATA has more than enough bandwidth for a DVD drive.
I thought that most of the high speed DVD writers use ATA-66, hence the need for a 80pin IDE connector on IDE drives.
If you use both drives at the same time, speed will suffer. IDE can only read/write to one drive at a time :)
SATA does not have this issue - every one is on its own channel :)
yeh i thought i was right about the 1 command only thing. I think it would be better to get a sata drive as airflow is dire in my care, the biggest cable will then be the dreaded 24pin power cable :P.
Any recommendations on drives? dvd rw is a bonus and £30 is tops but lower is always best xD, fastest read speeds are? 16x right?
Samsung / NEC / Pioneer are the big names. Never had a serious issue with any :)
Samsung are popular around here. I use NEC a lot due to the hacked firmwares. In all honesty, with a technology like DVD's its matured to the point where you're splitting hairs :)
This is what I mentioned in my first post but i have nec, liteon drives.. all fine.
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Even ATA 33MB/s will suffice, for example a 16x DVD-Drive will transfer data at approximately 21MB/s max and using that on a SATA interface which transfers at 188MB/s+ is overkill.
There is no performance difference between SATA and IDE optical drives (assuming the drive has it's own channel) , the prices of both are identical and the only differences are the physical advantages like smaller cables and ease of installation (easy to plug and no jumpers involved).
Optiarc is also a good brand, it's a joint venture between Sony and NEC.
Oh yes, totally, you won't get any "gain" by moving from one to the other unless you are writing on both writers and they are on the same channel. And its easier to route of course :)
For copying disks, it might be good to have two SATAs, but I have one IDE drive (thats a CD-RW) and one DVD-RAM drive (thats SATA) and they run about the same. Spec-wise, the IDE one actually is supposed to have a faster access time, bit my computer doesn't seem to like that drive (most games and such just look for the first drive, which is the DVD one). Basically, I'd go with SATA simply because it'll be easier to use them in the future as IDE gets phased out, but no worries if you already have one.
By the way, another very good brand is Lite-On. Both of my drives are these and they work great, and are quite quiet (as far as drives go anyways). My DVD Lite-On drive even does LiteScribe, which is a pretty cool little feature, in my opinion.
I currently have a Samsung, 2 Lite-Ons and an LG. The Samsung is the quietest and it's also shorter, which I like, as well as being an excellent writer. The newest Lite-On (LH-20A1S) is the best Reader of the 4.
yeh lite-on are decent i got one. Will check later today.