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I recently purchased a motherboard for a computer I'm building. I have completed it in most regards in that all it needs now is ram.
This motherbord I'm getting has 4 SATA and 1 IDE port.
The question here is, is it worth buying a new SATA harddrive to replace my 40GB 7200 RPM Seagate drive? (I also have a 80GB Maxtor that runs same RPM)
I heard good things about the SATA Raptor drives, but theyre expensive as heck, I may decide to get one in the distant future when I might beable to afford one.
Right now I am considering a SATA harddrive simply because it would free up the IDE so that I can have 2 CD/DVD drives attached. (it only has 1 IDE port)
Also whats the difference speed wise when comparing a CD/DVD SATA drive to its IDE counter part?
"I have completed it in most regards in that all it needs now is ram."
Don't buy ram at random.
See response 5 in this for some info about ram compatibilty, and some places where you can find out what will work in your mboard for sure:
http://www.computing.net/hardware/w...
Correction to that:
Mushkin www.mushkin.comYou don't necessarily have to get a SATA drive. You can get inexpensive IDE to SATA adapters and connect the IDE hard drives to the SATA headers, or get a PCI UDMA 133 hard drive controller card (as little as $30, or less) and connect up to 4 IDE hard drives to that, plus most recent cards also support ATAPI drives so the CD or DVD drives could be connected to either the card or the mboard.
SATA drives have a higher max data burst speed (150 or 300 mb/sec vs. max 133 mb/sec for IDE drives) but that can only be maintained for short periods of time before it reverts to the sustained data transfer rate, which is much slower and about the same for both IDE and SATA drives. Depending on what you use the computer for, you may not notice the difference.
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IF you need a new drive the logical choice is SATA. If only one IDE controller is onboard the MBoard, you only have capacity for TWO IDE devices. This counts your recycled IDE optical drives in addition to your IDE HD. I don't think the adapters mentioned above will work with optical drives. I could be wrong about that.
As far as speed is concerned you probably wouldn't notice the difference during normal use.
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Most data process transfer rates are at ATA 66mb anyways. You will not see any noticable improvement with SATA vs ATA 100 or higher.
I'd be a lot more concernd about the cache on the hard drive. Having a bigger cache is the most important feature on a hard drive right now, especially when your doing video editing you can deff see a diff that a larger cache makes.
"Windows Me II aka Windows Vista."
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A new drive would be faster only because it is newer. The same model drive from a manufacturer in IDE and SATA formats will perform exactly the same.
Michael J
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I have seen SATA DVD writers on the internet. So SATA optical drives seems doable.
I found some $40 40GB Raptors online. I may get one there. The Raptors sound fast since it runs at 10,000 RPM whichs is almost twice as fast as my standard 7200 rpm. It has a 8mb cache which is more then the hardrive I have now. I would rather not buy adaptors since they won't really perform as well as a true SATA drive whatever small difference that may be. 1 SATA harddrive and 2 IDE opticle drives seems to be the logicle way of doing it anyway. As far as I can tell, IDE Raptors don't exist, but then again I could be wronge. Raptors may be best suited for SATA anyway.
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"I found some $40 40GB Raptors online"
You have 120gb capacity in IDE drives now. If you get a 40 gb drive, how long is it going to be before you need another SATA drive?
"The Raptors sound fast since it runs at 10,000 RPM whichs is almost twice as fast as my standard 7200 rpm."
39% faster actually, but what is more important is the average seek time rating. A drive that spins 39% faster doesn't necessarily mean it will have an average seek time that is 39% faster, and often it doesn't.
Also important is the sustained data transfer rate - there may not be much difference."I have seen SATA DVD writers on the internet. So SATA optical drives seems doable."
Sure, they're available, but the specs are very similar to IDE connected drives of the same capabilities. Optical drives run much slower than hard drives (fastest I've seen is 66mb/sec)and they can't use the max SATA burst rate speeds in any case. If I were you I would continue to use your IDE optical drives until they die.
"I would rather not buy adaptors since they won't really perform as well as a true SATA drive whatever small difference that may be. "
If you're into spending money to achieve small gains, go ahead, but it is a waste to not be using your 120gb of capacity in IDE hard drives, and I recommend you get a hard drive controller card to connect them to.
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I don't have any 120GB drives. Where did you get that information? The one I'm using now is a 40GB 7200RPM Seagate. I do have a 80GB, but I can't have them both in at same time since I won't beable to use a IDE Optical drive. And right now the 80GB is in use in my mom's computer, so I can't simply pop it in and expect it to boot right now.
SATA has more ports then the one IDE I have, so adding more drives will be easier. (mobo has 4 SATA ports)
I won't be needing that much capacity anyway, I have used a computer with only 10GB once and never had problems running out of space, so the kind of work I do (mostly gaming) won't envolve more then 40GB right now.
If its possible to use adaptors for the IDE to use them in a RAID 0 situation, then it may be worth it then. Just point me in the direction to find these adaptors.
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I didn't say you had a 120gb drive - I said you had 120gb total IDE capacity (if you used both drives) - you didn't mention before that the 80gb is not available.
If you're fine with a smaller hard drive size, that's good. Most people these days want far more than 40gb, but personally I don't see the point either, especially when most computers have burners these days.Most PCI hard drive controller cards have RAID capability built in these days. Most PCI EIDE (a.k.a PATA, ATA 133, etc.) cards can have as many as 4 IDE drives connected to them, which would give you up to a total of 6 IDE connections with your mboard if you installed a single PCI card. Most but not all (e.g. not some Promise cards) can also support ATAPI drives, and in that case you can also connect optical drives to them.
Whatever hard drive controller capable of RAID you have, you need at least two hard drives to be connected to the controller to be able to actually set up and use a RAID array. In some cases you may be able to use an IDE and a SATA drive in a RAID configuration if the controller has both IDE and SATA headers and both are capable of RAID (usually seen with controller chipsets built into the mboard).
An example PCI card?
One with a Silicon Image chipset supports RAID and ATAPI drives.
One I have is an ST Lab model A-142
labelled : "PCI ATA 133 IDE Card"
"Raid Support (Optional)"
"A142 Sil 0680 ATA/133 RAID Card"
It comes with one 80 wire 3 connector flat data cable, basic directions, supports up to 4 drives, and supports any size of hard drive (has 48 bit LBA support).
I got it for $30 locally, from a small place that builds computers and has lots of computer pieces. You can probably get it on the web for less.
Additional support info available on the Silicon Image web site for any card with a Silicon Image chipset.
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My computer has 3 5.2 drive bays and 2 floppy drive bays, and 3 harddrive mounts, so whatever I choose I will be limited to the amount of drives my case can hold, and with the options available, the max hardrives I can have is 3, and 3 opticle drives. Unless I use an adapter to use hardrives in the larger drive bay then that case I could use more.
Well having 6 harddrives seems major overkill in my opinion and I just can't see using all of that capacity. I'm not a music downloader niether do I download large quantitys of data, so my 80GB will do fine at the moment.
Also note one mistake I made, the drive that was in my mom's computer is a 40GB not 80GB, and the drive I was curretnly using is 80GB.
So I kind of got them mixed up. Anyway since the 80GB had DDO installed on it to make it work with a old computer, I couldn't get it to boot since the DDO would not load properly on the new computer, even after installing XP and doing the Fdisk /mbr on it, the DDO still survives. Also, the 80GB is considerably slower then my 40GB, since the 80GB only runs at 5400RPM, which is too slow by my standards. (Some of the games I play benifit from the 7200RPM drives)
I can settle with what I have now, buying a PCI card isn't really an option right now since I still have to upgrade from 256mb that is currently installed to 2GB. (256MB was the starting ram I installed mostly just to get the computer running untill my next paycheck)
I have a Geforce 6200 Turbocache PCI-E video card installed, and expect to get good game perfomance from Battlefield 1942 and maybe even beable to play Battlefield 2 at medium levels. Currently niether game will run for the obvious reason of having only 256mb of ram, but soon that won't be a problem when I upgrade to 2GB (the max allowed by mobo)
I also plan to install a PCI TV Tuner card, along with a WIFI compatible PCI card to connect to a wireless router, so I won't have much space left for a IDE Card anyway. (plus I only have 3 PCI slots, 2 PCI-E, and 2 PCI- 16x) My computer doesn't get good CPU temps to begin with and cluttering up with all those cards won't help.
Right now I'm planning on getting a replacement heatsink for my CPU, since the current one simply isn't doing the job. (IDLE temps reach to 100 F, and max out at 125 F, which seems high to me) Case temps are below 100F so I'm not worried about the case overheating at the moment. (have 2 fans installed, 1 on back to bring air out, 1 on front to bring in, along with the PSU fans which also blow out. Fans I'm using are a little too small to mount properly with the fan vents, but plan to fix that on next paycheck.
The only time I may get a bigger harddrive then the ones I have now is when they eventually release a 1 TB hardrive. (they are already getting really close)
1 TB is loads more then I need, but I just want one to out do my mom lol.
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Magnum
Having an extra drive installed is usually a benefit. I would suggest that if your PSU is OK and you have a controller with an open spot, that you consider mounting the 80GB in the 5 1/4" bay for backup purposes, if nothing else.
When Buying RAM be sure it is compatible with your board. Crucial.com has a configurator to show compatible RAM modules.
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I am aware of the compatibility requirements and since I have a Kingsten 256mb DDR400 module, I will get the same brand and type. I did read up on the mobo specs, so I know which ram to get. At the moment I have 1 harddrive installed and have room for 2 more, so I don't need any adapters unless I get more then that. I have a 500w PSU, so I have all the power I need. My mobo can also support DDR 300 (or is it 333, can't remember but it it has 3 as the first digit) whichs is slower then DDR 400, so I'll just go with the DDR 400 ram. Maximum ram my mobo can go is 2GB
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Hard drives are so dirt cheap nowadays... why not upgrade to SATA. its like $40 for a SATA 160 gig drive now... about $100 will get you 500 gig.
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