Almost finished accumulating the components for my home build, I have a SATA HD, will IDE interface optical drives work with the SATA HD? Do they make optical drives with SATA interface or just IDE? If so, is there a preference anybody has? Can someone please explain the difference to me concerning these two interfaces (I know speed is a difference, anything else?) Thanks for any replies.

There are no SATA optical disk. In fact optical disk are only ATA33 whereas IDE hard disk go up to ATA133. You are governed by the speed at which the drive can read and write data so there is no advantage in using a faster interface with optical drives. The difference is that SATA is a serial interface and IDE is a parallel interface. Theoretically is a parallel interface should be faster as the data is sent down the cable eight bits at a time wheres with a serial cable data goes down one bit at a time. Parallel has problems transmitting data past certain speeds, problems that don't occur with a serial interface. Consequently with the advances in technology and high speed switching circuits serial cables can transmit data faster then a parallel cable. USB is another example where a serial interface has superseded parallel interfaces for printers. Stuart

Plextor has the PX-712SA which has a SATA interface. Using SATA opticals will not result in any performance gains since an optical drive is not capable of reaching the throughput needed to saturate the SATA channel. All this does is offer another option for connecting the drive to a system, reducing cable clutter and leaving the IDE ports open for other devices. The mainboard must have SATA support native to the chipset, meaning add-on or secondary RAID controllers will not work.

OK, so the CD burner, the CD-ROM, and the DVD burner I get all can have the IDE interface and it will not cause a conflict with my SATA HD?

No, providing you have the support on the motherboard for four IDE device and a SATA device. I say for because IDE interfaces come in twos. But why do you need a CD burner, a CD-ROM and a DVD burner. Two optical devices I could understand - but three? Stuart

That was a typo on my part (I realized it after posting) I am just getting 2 drives, a CD/DVD-ROM drive and a DVD burner. The MOBO I have (MSI K8N NEO4-platinum)lists storage devices as: PATA- 2xATA 133 up to 4 devices SATA-4x SATAII Additional SATA-4xSATA150. I should be OK, Thanks Stuart for the help.