IDE or SATA??

[RVF500]

I'm looking at putting an additional drive in my current system. This is to keep teenage kids coursework etc away from Dad's important games and stuff. There also remains the thought of building in headroom for more additional drives later on and using the PC as a server as all have laptops (my hand-me-downs) and after implementation of a home network would also keep said scruffy teenagers from invading and occupying Dad's study. My only haven of tranquility in a sea insanity known as family life.

Ok, down to the techy bit. IDE or SATA? My mobo, Abit IC7-G, will support both. Also any thoughts on manufacturer? I've looked around but can't really decide whether to stick with what I have or try out Maxtor.

I currently run an IDE drive but that can go into another box that I have lying around if I go with the SATA option.

[Aaron]

Personally, I'd go with SATA if possible. The cable is thinner (better airflow) and they're hot-swappable. You'll either need a compatible PSU or a power cable convertor (around £5?) to use a SATA drive though.

As for what make, my personal preference is Seagate or Samsung as they make exceptionally quiet drives.

[SMPer]

i second Aaron on this..besides that, performance-wise SATA is better..if i'm not mistaken most benchmarks show that SATA has higher average read/write performance although burst read/write speed might still be ATA's

[Agent]

Maxtors SATA 80gig, 8meg cachem 7200rpm drives are super cheap at the moment, and are a really good buy.
It has both the standard molex power connectors ad the new SATA ones

[subucni]

i've got an IC7 mobo and mine came with a sata power cable convertor in the box, so you might not need to get one if you go down the sata route, check your abit box.

[Spud1]

maxtor ones are cool =) i have a pair in my system, runnin 2x120gig maxtores in raid0 (yes i know the risks dont go on about em) Both my maxtors have either sata power connectors or standard molex - tho my mobo included adapters anyway

[RVF500]

Yeah, I have the SATA cables and have them stored in a safe place in case I chose to use them. I'll price some drives up and see where to go next. Not used RAID before so I'll have to read up on that. I nothing about it as of yet. Do I need to use RAID and if so do I need any additional hardware?

[Zak33]

only if you're gonna fully re install...and as it sounds like you wanna keep all your data in situ....nope...

no point in running a RAID system for this extra data if your OS is on an older IDE single hdd really.

Think its just a case of buying a new HDD and plugging it in and formating

[myth]

Err..

Why not keep the original drive and add a sata as a secondary drive? Make it a slave and use it for his study...


Or just buy one and make a image backup of the old one and transfer it to the new one! Or use the bundleed software to do it for you!

[TooNice]

i second Aaron on this..besides that, performance-wise SATA is better..if i'm not mistaken most benchmarks show that SATA has higher average read/write performance although burst read/write speed might still be ATA's

I disagree. Performance wise, for the same model, there are usually -no- performance advantage between IDE and SATA (at the moment).

Obviously the Raptor is superior to every IDE drive, but if you take two identical drive with different interface you are unlikely to find any difference. SATA provide a higher bandwidth, but its not like a single 7200PRM drive (or even two) can exceed the bandwidth provided by a modern IDE interface (133MB/sec).

And considering that most SATA drives (including the Raptor if I remember right - quite strangely) are actually using an IDE to SATA bridge.. They are, if anything, they are slower (technically, but its unlikely to reflect on real world applications).

Right now, the biggest advantage I can see from going SATA is for the cabling.

As for specific manufacturers..
Western Digital (JB/SE editions) drives are definitely good, although they are considered a bit noisy.
Maxtor drives are also highly regarded.
Personally, I would recommend the Hitachi Deskstar 7k250 series however.

If you want to good source for hardisk information, I would suggest www.storagereview.com

They have a nice section (performance database) where you can pick from a large selection of drives they've tested and pit them head to head. Here's an example:
http://storagereview.com/php/benchma...3=251&devCnt=4

As you can see, the Hitachi 7k250 does rather well against the other drives (performance and noise wise).
And as you can see from the Western Digital Drive.. SATA does not necessarily mean faster.
You would suggest that you go have a look at the other drives they've tested.

On a side note, all the drives there can be found in size smaller than 250GB.

This might sound like a plug in, but I must say that I find the information there rather reliable when it comes to hard disk information:
http://forums.storagereview.net/inde...howtopic=15316
(SATA vs PATA)
http://forums.storagereview.net/inde...howtopic=15358
(Another user looking for a HD - the Samsung seems rather well regarded as well.. Never used any of their drives myself though).