IDE or SATA DVD drive

[gfk]

I'm gonna buy a new DVD drive. I was wondering if the SATA drives have any advantages over the old IDE drives that may interest me?

[shaithis]

SATA DVD drives seem to work substantially better in newer PCs for booting windows due to those crappy JMicron IDE chips they keep using now.

[oolon]

I would get a SATA as newer boards are removing PATA connections, so the drive has a better future lifetime.

[Lee H]

I would recommend SATA each and every time.

They have thinner data cables and as such they allow you to keep the inside neat and tidy without affecting airflow.

Also, since swapping from a PATA DVD Drive to a SATA drive, my PC boots quicker as the PATA is now disabled within the BIOS (along with the Serial and various other ports like floppy)

[gfk]

Thanks for the advice. I guess I'll go with SATA. I thought about going with IDE because I may use it for a bit then get a Blu-ray drive later when they become cheaper and can then move the DVD to a old PC (which doesn't have one).

Thanks again

[Behemoth]

SATA drive most definatley, had my LG one for a few months now and it's the fastest optical drive I've ever used.

[gfk]

Yeah I was wondering if there was any speed benefits using SATA over IDE.

[Pob255]

Personally I've never really noticed any speed difference, but dealing with the sata cables is generally easier.

[shadowmaster]

Sata, IDE cables are quite large and its significantly more difficult to do neat cabling with them.

[s3ds]

TBH I would recomend SATA unless you are still using XP with Raid / AHCI and are not sure if the bios will have one or two of its SATA ports in IDE Mode with the rest in Raid / AHCI then i would go with IDE as it makes the XP install easyer
The only other time i would use an IDE is when you are going to use all the SATA's for hard drives !

[K3V]

one important bit, check your mobo and see how many sata's you have left, and whether your thinking of getting a new hdd etc.. in the future

obv if you only have one port left and are thinking of grabbing a nice new hdd soon then i'd probably go for the ide dvd drive (your wallet will certainly thank you )

other than that, it's sata all the way from me - just best checking whats available on your board first

[scaryjim]

... i'd probably go for the ide dvd drive (your wallet will certainly thank you )

His wallet won't care - a basic OEM IDE DRD/RW is exactly the same price as a SATA one (at ebuyer at least: £15.99).

If you have or can cheaply source round IDE cables the cabling issue is kind of moot - I'm lucky in having had several mobos in the past that came with decent round cables . They're just about as easy to cable neatly with as SATA ones.

I can think of 2 reasons for getting an IDE drive:

If you are considering moving the new drive to an older PC that doesn't support SATA in the future, then get an IDE one. It'd be a terrible shame to buy a new SATA drive now then have it redundant within months because you've upgraded to BD, and a new IDE drive is likely to be better than any old ones you've got lying around (the old one in my HTPC sounds like a floppy drive when it starts spinning, and will be being replaced when Windows 7 arrives)!

As K3V says, if you are likely to want all your SATA ports for hard drives, either now or in the future, then get an IDE one. Decent SATA hard drives will benefit more from the additional bandwidth than a DVD drive. Be aware, however, that if you do this you may be scuppered for a BD drive, as (afaict) they are currently only available with SATA connectivity: use up all your SATA ports on HDs now and you'll be stuck for upgrading (unless you invest in some kind of convertor / adaptor)!


Apart from those 2 situations though, it's SATA all the way

[Saracen]

Personally, I'd go SATA (and indeed, did) for much the reasons given by Lee@Scan and others ... neater cabling, and keeping the machine IDE-free.

If money were really tight and I had an IDE drive to use, ore had IDE HDs in that machine, I might use it for the time being, but in fact, I have several redundant IDE drive sitting in my spares drawer, and still bought new SATA drives for a recent build.

Also, if I were thinking about a BD drive in the future, I'd get a SATA DVD writer with BD playback now, and if I upgraded to a BD writer latter, would ADD rather than replacing the older driver. That way, you can hopefully do direct BD to BD copies ..... assuming it's legal and you have the rights to source material, of course.

[scaryjim]

Also, if I were thinking about a BD drive in the future, I'd get a SATA DVD writer with BD playback now, and if I upgraded to a BD writer latter, would ADD rather than replacing the older driver. That way, you can hopefully do direct BD to BD copies

This is a great point, actually, and takes me back to the days of fitting 2 drives (DVD rom and CD-RW) to every computer I built (he said, showing his age). I've also been thinking about this, and one of those adapters I linked to earlier would let you do this via your one IDE connector and still leave space for using all of your native SATA connectors for hard drives. To me, that makes it a complete no brainer - get the SATA drive

[K3V]

His wallet won't care - a basic OEM IDE DRD/RW is exactly the same price as a SATA one (at ebuyer at least: £15.99).

I meant for the cost of an ide hard drive, crazy prices atm

..... assuming it's legal and you have the rights to source material, of course.

Well sneaked in there

[Brewster0101]

Quite surprised to see this question. The sooner IDE leaves modern motherboard designs the better. Can't believe floppy drives are still catered for.

Also begs the question. Why has no one designed a smaller power connector to replace the 24 lead bulky thing....