IDE & SATA

[SyCD]

Whats the difference between these types of hard drives?

Sy

 

[Griff]

In a nutshell... The way they connect to the motherboard but there's more to it than that.

 

[kneebs76]

They're completely different interfaces - basically SATA gives you faster transfer rates than IDE, and uses completely different cables / connectors.

 

[Mike_182]

SATA takes the same path as the Parallel/USB conversion - improved data throughput and compatibility for larger capacity. PCI to PCI-Express and SCSI to SAS was the next to follow.

 

[Mike_182]

See : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA

 

[KDF]

All you need to know is sata is better... in oh so many ways..

 

[SyCD]

Cheers for the replys, i thought the Sata one would be better as the new motherboard has 4 slots to fit them in, unlike the one for IDE.
Looking forward to soild state drives coming out at a decent price and size's in a few years, I'm lead to beelive they'll speed up computers alot?

Sy

 

[kneebs76]

Cheers for the replys, i thought the Sata one would be better as the new motherboard has 4 slots to fit them in, unlike the one for IDE.
Looking forward to soild state drives coming out at a decent price and size's in a few years, I'm lead to beelive they'll speed up computers alot?

Sy

Well a mobo with 4 SATA connections is the equivelant of having 2 IDE connections - with IDE you a master & slave device on each cable, with SATA it's one cable per drive. The single IDE connector on the board will be for optical drives - most people still have IDE CD / DVD drives.

Solid state drives , when they eventually do come in decent sizes at a decent price will not only allow for faster read / write access, but should hopefully be more reliable too as there's no mechanical parts.

 

[Darren S]

Whats the difference between these types of hard drives?

Sy

It's quite common to get SATA connections on CD and DVD drives these days too. I think the single biggest benefit is the reduction in wide PATA cables inside the case that are an issue when using IDE devices. It's far from perfect with the narrower SATA cables, but it's a step in the right direction. Narrower cables mean less restirction for the air-flow.

Unfortunately, quite a few mobo designers don't really put their brain into gear with the location of the SATA sockets. Mine has six onboard, but half are nigh-on useless when you have two graphics cards installed. The space is ridiculously limited.

D.

 

[Rasclart]

With you there Darren some are damn right crap location wise. Makes for better air flow and faster throughput. Connections are a bit flimsy but with a little bit of planning I have never had an issue.

Much better all round unless you are the bloke who rung me at work the other day and shouted at me when I explianed IDE HDD's arent really used in new systems these days, I was promptly told I have no idea what I was talking about and that it was a waste of time him ringing me as I knew nothing as 90% of new PC's for the past year have been IDE hard drives.

 

[KDF]

Solid state drives , when they eventually do come in decent sizes at a decent price will not only allow for faster read / write access, but should hopefully be more reliable too as there's no mechanical parts.

Not really, there are limitations to how many times you can write data to the same section. Now.. take the pagefile for example ? dead solid state drive within a couple months anyone ?