Are ide or ultra ata drives that old fashioned?

[thewalrusking]

When picking out a new mobo for my new pc build I cant find a mobo with 2 pata ports. All i find is 1 ide port, that allows 2 devices, ok, 2 on one cord. But I have 4 ide devices, 3 hds and a burner. I only find one ide card on newegg, just seems weird, I mean most of the hd at bestbuy are Ide right? I guess ive just been away from it from a while and my hds got old. I guess what Ill do is save 2 hds that are used for programs and storage (music etc.) and gt a new burner, need one anyway. And use the third hd as a usb one, or maybe use it as a usb on my ps3.

Anyway Im just wondering if SATA is really alot faster, I always thought there wasnt a huge diff on system performance unless u use sata for the windows partition. Maybe Im wrong.

 

[rockyjohn]

SATA connections are not appreciably faster than IDE. However new drives are faster than old ones so a newer SATA drive maybe be faster than an older IDE. And a new IDE drive might be faster than an older one.
You can also purchase controller cards - PCI cards - to provide additional IDE connections.
This is the only one I saw listed on newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815280002

A new mobo might also have PCI express x1 slots and you can also find controller cards for it.

Your can also find IDE to SATA converters - but I have no idea how well they work,

YOu also need to review your PSU. IDE and SATA devices use different power connectors too - so you need to ensure you have enought of the right connectors. And if you are getting a new board and keeping an old power supply - you need to make sure you have the correct power connectors for the motherboard.

 

[4745454b]

The true insides of IDE and SATA drives are the same. The both can come with 16MBs of cache, they both spin at 7200RPMs, The interface might be different, and have different maximum rated speeds, but because they are the same spinning disks, there is no real difference in performance.

The best thing to do is probably hook them up with external USB boxes. As a side bonus, they are then removable.

 

[rockyjohn]

But how much will external USB slow down the interface?

 

[ZOldDude]

But how much will external USB slow down the interface?

To the transfer speed of USB2.
Even the fastest home HD does not use all the bandwith of an ATA133 connection...no matter what the HD has for an interface with the MB.

The same HD in PATA is also about $10 less that the same unit with a SATA300 interface.

 

[nukemaster]

The best reason for sata is that each drive has a channel, so reading and writing to multiple drives CAN be faster. the Technology behind the drives are identical and limit the max speeds.

USB while having a theoretical maximum transfer rate of 480 megabits per second(60 megabytes per second). there is a fair amount of overhead for the protocol it self that will slow the drive down into the 30-45 meg range in most cases....It can vary allot from enclosure to enclosure....

With E-sata being available ready now it is getting to be the best option....

Just powered up my backup drive and gave it a bench...i have another adapter that may be faster, but i don't feel like taking it out of the case since adding data weekly does not take long.....

 

[4745454b]

Yes, USB will slow you down. If speed is a requirement, buy SATA drives, or hook them up differently. (eSATA or firewire would both be faster.) I said USB not because they are fastest, but more common on motherboards.

Considering how cheap modern SATA drives are, I'd just buy one that is larger then all of your old drives put together. Hook them up one at a time, copy the contents to the new big drive, then delete the info. Sell the old drives, and just use your big sata drive. Depending on the size of the three drives, this could be as cheap as buying a $60 250GB drive, or a $110 500GB. This isn't a good idea if you have three 200GB+, as a terrabyte drive is expensive.

 

[nukemaster]

Ohhh last thing. I needed an extra port once and just got a Maxtor Sata/IDE card. It was powered by promise and gave me ZERO problems. that said this may work...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816102027

Still keep your windows drive on the board header if you can, as they tend to be faster....and it avoids needing drivers on windows install for this, put the others on here....and after windows is on, it may not be a bad idea to move the DVD drive over too(if you keep it)...