Serial ATA hard drive confusion

1. The Serial ATA hard drives I've seen on Newegg have the same basic
stats (Average Seek Time: 8.5 ms, Buffer: 8MB, Rotational Speed: 7200
RPM) as most other drives, yet people say they are faster... why?

2. Does one need a special motherboard to use them? Exactly how does
that work?

Serial ATA harddrives have a maximum data transfer rate of 150 Mbps.
Parallel ATA drives have a maximum of 100 or 133 Mbps, depending on brand.

SATA drives use a different controller than PATA drives, so the motherboard
must be designed for it.

--
DaveW



"mrbclass" wrote in message
om...
1. The Serial ATA hard drives I've seen on Newegg have the same basic
stats (Average Seek Time: 8.5 ms, Buffer: 8MB, Rotational Speed: 7200
RPM) as most other drives, yet people say they are faster... why?

2. Does one need a special motherboard to use them? Exactly how does
that work?

OK clearly I do not know the difference between Serial ATA and SATA if
there is one. Are they the same thing?

Yes.
- Tom

(mrbclass) wrote in message . com...
OK clearly I do not know the difference between Serial ATA and SATA if
there is one. Are they the same thing?

I suppose Serial ATA and IDE use the same cable, but just process the
info differently? Or will I need a different cable as well as a Serial
ATA enabled motherboard?

yep, different cable too.
- Tom

(mrbclass) wrote in message . com...
I suppose Serial ATA and IDE use the same cable, but just process the
info differently? Or will I need a different cable as well as a Serial
ATA enabled motherboard?

You don't actually need a special motherboard for Serial ATA, you can use a
Serial ATA Controller card (which would go in a PCI slot).

"mrbclass" wrote in message
om...
I suppose Serial ATA and IDE use the same cable, but just process the
info differently? Or will I need a different cable as well as a Serial
ATA enabled motherboard?