SATA vs IDE

[DeludedGuy]

Currently on IDE, thinking of buying a 200gb Serial ATA. Would i notice the difference in speed?

[directhex]

probably not, but the cabling is lovely

[TiG]

Short answer is yes, but speed is a difficult thing to define, for me sata comes with many benefits, lower cpu utilisation, better burst rates especially with TRUE sata drives. Plus the cost is pretty much the same as pata drives. Will you notice the speed difference, well i doubt it, transfering large files from 1 disk to another will always be done at the slowest rate, same with DVD or CD to the HD...

So in terms of transfer speed no you won't notice.

TiG

[Lee H]

SATA is also better if you system supports NCQ (Native Command Queuing) as the read head doesn't thrash about as much compared to IDE. It is worth noting that Serial ATA revision 2 is almost upon us - with transfer speeds of 300 Mb/s which will obviously blow ATA out of the water.

[da_ging]

its also worth noting that although the sata rv2 interface will support 300mb a second we havent got a single drive that can tax even sata 150 yet in terms of data throughput

basic answer is if you already have sata on your mobo ,you might aswell get a sata drive ie the new dm10 maxtor drive as for a few quid more its worth it

[DeludedGuy]

will sata r2 require new sata ports?

[Lee H]

will sata r2 require new sata ports?

Nope - its the same design and size as the normal Sata ports.

Serial ATA 2 is on the nforce 4 chipset as well so all the people will be able to upgrade next year when SATA 300 appears

[Agent]

But lets be honest, SATA 300 is nothing more than a marketing gimmic.....

[Lee H]

But lets be honest, SATA 300 is nothing more than a marketing gimmic.....

We shall see when the benchmarks and drives appear. Fingers crossed it will be better than IDE, and in about 2-3 years Serial ATA 600 is released, with yes... you guess it 600 Mb/s transfer

[Defiant]

The true issue is not the fact that these names are gimmics. The true gimmic is that these are all burst rate figures which I find a laugh as most peeps dont do 1-2 sec burst all that often.

Its constant data rate that I want to see more often in drive stats, thats where I would put my cash if I require a hard drive.

[Vimeous]

I'd suggest you buy SATA simply to improve cabling and thereby system cooling. The fact it can transfer data a touch faster (though barely noticeable) is usefull but not a means unto an end as the differences are so small (of course if you were transfering data between two SATA drives you might notice.
NCQ will not be an issue for you unless you have a new Intel 915/925 chipset based motherboard which I suspect you don't. Also if you're thinking 200Gb I guess a 73Gb Raptor drive is too small for needs which is a shame as you would probably notice a difference with one of those in general use.
Regardless go SATA. If anything your next drive will be SATA as well so this one may as well match!

[Agent]

We shall see when the benchmarks and drives appear. Fingers crossed it will be better than IDE, and in about 2-3 years Serial ATA 600 is released, with yes... you guess it 600 Mb/s transfer

Whys that then ?
Its the same issue as ATA100 vs ATA133. Modern HD's cant fill the 100 channel, even when bursting, nevermind sustained rate.
SATA150 is great for cabling, and depending on what controler it uses, it can lead to lower CPU usage too. But again, like ATA100/133, the channels bandwidth wont be fully used, so doubling it will have hardly any effect.
Maybe it will reduce the time that a drive has to wait to send data on the channel, but even this is going to be minimal.

[Agent]

Also, ive been meaning to ask you this : http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=29184
You say the NF7-S supports NCQ with a BIOS update ?, has fishgate changed their page due to an error, or were you looking at the wrong list ?
I cant find no mention of NCQ support being added into the 3114 chipset on the SI site either? :\
Abit have a "Supports new version of Super IO" in the changelog for BIOS 25, but it dont specificaly mention NCQ.

Do you know 100% that this is NCQ support, as everywhere i look says the NF7 dont support it at all (and im gussing these are correect unless SI release a new BIOS) ?

ta

[Wam7]

The short answer is yes, you are better off with SATA as it's no worse than PATA and has a few benefits. But be aware you are not going to notice the difference speed wise as there virtually is any.

And to add to the other point. NCQ actually slows down the 74gig WD Raptor. Don't get sucked in by manufacturers hype. Wait for cold, hard, impartial empirical data befor making assumptions.

[Lee H]

Also, ive been meaning to ask you this : http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=29184
You say the NF7-S supports NCQ with a BIOS update ?, has fishgate changed their page due to an error, or were you looking at the wrong list ?
I cant find no mention of NCQ support being added into the 3114 chipset on the SI site either? :\
Abit have a "Supports new version of Super IO" in the changelog for BIOS 25, but it dont specificaly mention NCQ.

Do you know 100% that this is NCQ support, as everywhere i look says the NF7 dont support it at all (and im gussing these are correect unless SI release a new BIOS) ?

ta

Np Agent - I've just mailed my techy contacts @ Taiwan to see which BIOS revision the NCQ support was included in and to why this is not noted on their website at all. As soon as I have any feedback I'll let you know mate

[Apex]

iirc the NF7-S v2 uses the 3112a sa chipset not the 3114 Agent.