SATA vs ATA drive

I need to add a new hard drive to my ASUS p4p800 deluxe machine. It
currently has an ATA 100 drive. In the real world, are the SATA drives
that much faster than an ATA drive? I know that they are capable of
operating a 150 MBps, but does that translate into a drive that is 50%
faster than my current drive?

Are there any other advantages or disadvantages to SATA drives?

Pete

Peter B. wrote:
I need to add a new hard drive to my ASUS p4p800 deluxe machine. It
currently has an ATA 100 drive. In the real world, are the SATA drives
that much faster than an ATA drive? I know that they are capable of
operating a 150 MBps, but does that translate into a drive that is 50%
faster than my current drive?

Are there any other advantages or disadvantages to SATA drives?

Pete

I have built a number of machines using Maxtor and Western Digital 120GB
drives, all on Abit NF7-S motherboards and can't tell any difference
between the SATA and ATA. I'm not using RAID on any of these machines.
I'm sure there is a difference but it must not translate into a big
performance difference or I'd notice it. I'll bet there might be a
difference with the 10,000 RPM Raptors...I haven't had one of those.
Some people like the SATA cables but for me the ATA are fine. Maybe
others here have noticed a big performance boost. I'd be curious to
hear from them. Anyway, hope this helps.

- David Kistner

Most of the current SATA drives are nothing more than IDE drives in "SATA"
clothing! They have a chipset that provides a bridge between the SATA and
IDE interfaces, that's all. So there's really no justification for the
increased pricing on these particular SATA drives. The one exception is the
WD Raptors, these *are* a true rework of the HD. But even these come
nowhere near the 150MB/sec capability of the SATA 1.0 spec. With the
current state of HD technology, it's the internal mechanics of the HD that
limit its throughput, NOT the interface. So simply changing the interface
isn't going to result in vast improvements.

If you really want more performance, nothing works better than RAID0
(stripping) a pair of HDs, esp. w/ Raptors (I've seen reports of 60MB/sec or
better, a typical IDE RAID0 might garner 40-43MB/sec).

So unless you go for the Raptors, there's not really much gained w/ SATA
(IMO), esp. since they continue to sell at a premium. Heck, Circuit City
was dumping 160GB IDE HDs for $20 after rebate the other day (in-store)!
Granted, an extremely awesome and rare deal, but $60 for that same HD at
Circuit City has popped up several times over the past several months. At
those prices, it's awfully hard to bite on SATA when there's essentially no
benefits.

HTH

Jim


"Peter B." wrote in message
...
I need to add a new hard drive to my ASUS p4p800 deluxe machine. It
currently has an ATA 100 drive. In the real world, are the SATA drives
that much faster than an ATA drive? I know that they are capable of
operating a 150 MBps, but does that translate into a drive that is 50%
faster than my current drive?

Are there any other advantages or disadvantages to SATA drives?

Pete

On Thu, 01 Apr 2004 02:51:50 GMT, David Kistner
wrote:

Peter B. wrote:
I need to add a new hard drive to my ASUS p4p800 deluxe machine. It
currently has an ATA 100 drive. In the real world, are the SATA drives
that much faster than an ATA drive? I know that they are capable of
operating a 150 MBps, but does that translate into a drive that is 50%
faster than my current drive?

Are there any other advantages or disadvantages to SATA drives?

Pete

I have built a number of machines using Maxtor and Western Digital 120GB
drives, all on Abit NF7-S motherboards and can't tell any difference
between the SATA and ATA. I'm not using RAID on any of these machines.
I'm sure there is a difference but it must not translate into a big
performance difference or I'd notice it. I'll bet there might be a
difference with the 10,000 RPM Raptors...I haven't had one of those.
Some people like the SATA cables but for me the ATA are fine. Maybe
others here have noticed a big performance boost. I'd be curious to
hear from them. Anyway, hope this helps.

- David Kistner
I have a mobo that supports fast ata drives(somewhat about the same as
ata100)
It allows for just enough speed to enable downloading dv tape via
firewire.(with only an occasional frame drop.)
However with maxtors ata 133 controller card I see significant
increases in speed.(using a maxtor 80gb 7200)
I have a 40gb Seagate Barracuda ATA 4 drive that's supposed to be even
faster than the Maxtor tho' I haven't tried it out yet.

Peter B. wrote in message . ..
I need to add a new hard drive to my ASUS p4p800 deluxe machine. It
currently has an ATA 100 drive. In the real world, are the SATA drives
that much faster than an ATA drive? I know that they are capable of
operating a 150 MBps, but does that translate into a drive that is 50%
faster than my current drive?

Are there any other advantages or disadvantages to SATA drives?

Pete

The other two REosts are correct in general. The average user will
not understand the difference. One big note here, if you are adding
HDD space for media intensive applications, such as music recording
you need to think about SATA for one other reason, you can run ATA DMA
HDDs along with SATA HDDs so you can have all of your CDroms on IDEsec
two HDDs on IDEprim and 2, 4 or even 6 HDD on SATA all at the same
time, put your old HDDs to work again for System backup and restore.
Remember your Power capabilities don't under supply the system or the
PSU will burn out possibly catch fire.

Xtr

I should add one other caveat that *is* relevant in your case.

In some cases, the use of SATA *bypasses* the PCI bus! In the case of a
mobo using the ICHR chipset (e.g., your ASUS P4P800 Deluxe), the SATA
interface on the mobo is a *true* SATA interface in that it uses its own bus
(much the way CSA helps bypass the PCI bus for LAN traffic). In these
cases, this *may* offload enough traffic from the PCI bus to cause an
*overall* increase in performance. IOW, if you have applications that are
already saturating (not just using, but saturating, concurrently) the PCI
bus (LAN traffic, AGP graphics, sound card, etc.), and/or HD intensive
applications (e.g., video/audio editting), then it only makes sense that in
these cases, employing BOTH the SATA and IDE interfaces will deminish
congestion on their respective buses, and thus increase overall performance.
But the performance increases are the result of using the SATA of the mobo,
NOT a function of the SATA HD itself (excluding Raptors).

That's why for anyone else reading this post and considering its
applicability to their situation, you need to consider your mobo SATA
interface too. For example, some of the earliest SATA-enabled mobo's did
NOT use the Intel Canterwood or Springdale (865/875) chipsets, some use the
Intel 845, still others currently use chipsets from VIA or SiS, thus they
are forced to support other SATA options, such as a Silicon Graphics SATA
chipset (which interfaces to the PCI bus). Or the mobo may have the Intel
865/875 chipset supplemented with one from Silicon Graphics to *add* more
ports (or additional RAID options). In these cases, use of the Intel SATA
interface bypasses the PCI bus, but use of the Silicon Graphic interface
does NOT!

For most people, under most circumstances, the 1Gbit/sec (133MB/sec)
capacity of the PCI bus will be sufficient. Concern over whether to employ
the SATA bus to relieve congestion probably isn't worth worrying about, but
there are always special cases where it will matter, so you should be aware.


Bottomline: Consideration must be given to the nature of the mobo SATA
interface, who provides it, and whether it does or does not use the PCI bus.
This *can* affect overall performance and should go into your analysis when
determining whether a SATA HD, at its current state, is right for you.
Since noone but you can truly understand your needs and the demand you place
on the ystem, that's a determination only you can make.

HTH

Jim


"Jim" wrote in message news:B6Mac.3247$zh.3013@fed1read07...
Most of the current SATA drives are nothing more than IDE drives in "SATA"
clothing! They have a chipset that provides a bridge between the SATA and
IDE interfaces, that's all. So there's really no justification for the
increased pricing on these particular SATA drives. The one exception is
the
WD Raptors, these *are* a true rework of the HD. But even these come
nowhere near the 150MB/sec capability of the SATA 1.0 spec. With the
current state of HD technology, it's the internal mechanics of the HD that
limit its throughput, NOT the interface. So simply changing the interface
isn't going to result in vast improvements.

If you really want more performance, nothing works better than RAID0
(stripping) a pair of HDs, esp. w/ Raptors (I've seen reports of 60MB/sec
or
better, a typical IDE RAID0 might garner 40-43MB/sec).

So unless you go for the Raptors, there's not really much gained w/ SATA
(IMO), esp. since they continue to sell at a premium. Heck, Circuit City
was dumping 160GB IDE HDs for $20 after rebate the other day (in-store)!
Granted, an extremely awesome and rare deal, but $60 for that same HD at
Circuit City has popped up several times over the past several months. At
those prices, it's awfully hard to bite on SATA when there's essentially
no
benefits.

HTH

Jim


"Peter B." wrote in message
...
I need to add a new hard drive to my ASUS p4p800 deluxe machine. It
currently has an ATA 100 drive. In the real world, are the SATA drives
that much faster than an ATA drive? I know that they are capable of
operating a 150 MBps, but does that translate into a drive that is 50%
faster than my current drive?

Are there any other advantages or disadvantages to SATA drives?

Pete

Very articulate and informative reply, Jim. You really should consider
moonlighting as a manual writer for some of the Taiwanese hardware
manufacturers in your spare time!

Russell

"Jim" wrote in message news:_%Wac.3617$zh.2898@fed1read07...
I should add one other caveat that *is* relevant in your case.

In some cases, the use of SATA *bypasses* the PCI bus! In the case of a
mobo using the ICHR chipset (e.g., your ASUS P4P800 Deluxe), the SATA
interface on the mobo is a *true* SATA interface in that it uses its own
bus
(much the way CSA helps bypass the PCI bus for LAN traffic). In these
cases, this *may* offload enough traffic from the PCI bus to cause an
*overall* increase in performance. IOW, if you have applications that are
already saturating (not just using, but saturating, concurrently) the PCI
bus (LAN traffic, AGP graphics, sound card, etc.), and/or HD intensive
applications (e.g., video/audio editting), then it only makes sense that
in
these cases, employing BOTH the SATA and IDE interfaces will deminish
congestion on their respective buses, and thus increase overall
performance.
But the performance increases are the result of using the SATA of the
mobo,
NOT a function of the SATA HD itself (excluding Raptors).

That's why for anyone else reading this post and considering its
applicability to their situation, you need to consider your mobo SATA
interface too. For example, some of the earliest SATA-enabled mobo's did
NOT use the Intel Canterwood or Springdale (865/875) chipsets, some use
the
Intel 845, still others currently use chipsets from VIA or SiS, thus they
are forced to support other SATA options, such as a Silicon Graphics SATA
chipset (which interfaces to the PCI bus). Or the mobo may have the Intel
865/875 chipset supplemented with one from Silicon Graphics to *add* more
ports (or additional RAID options). In these cases, use of the Intel SATA
interface bypasses the PCI bus, but use of the Silicon Graphic interface
does NOT!

For most people, under most circumstances, the 1Gbit/sec (133MB/sec)
capacity of the PCI bus will be sufficient. Concern over whether to
employ
the SATA bus to relieve congestion probably isn't worth worrying about,
but
there are always special cases where it will matter, so you should be
aware.


Bottomline: Consideration must be given to the nature of the mobo SATA
interface, who provides it, and whether it does or does not use the PCI
bus.
This *can* affect overall performance and should go into your analysis
when
determining whether a SATA HD, at its current state, is right for you.
Since noone but you can truly understand your needs and the demand you
place
on the ystem, that's a determination only you can make.

HTH

Jim


"Jim" wrote in message
news:B6Mac.3247$zh.3013@fed1read07...
Most of the current SATA drives are nothing more than IDE drives in
"SATA"
clothing! They have a chipset that provides a bridge between the SATA
and
IDE interfaces, that's all. So there's really no justification for the
increased pricing on these particular SATA drives. The one exception is
the
WD Raptors, these *are* a true rework of the HD. But even these come
nowhere near the 150MB/sec capability of the SATA 1.0 spec. With the
current state of HD technology, it's the internal mechanics of the HD
that
limit its throughput, NOT the interface. So simply changing the
interface
isn't going to result in vast improvements.

If you really want more performance, nothing works better than RAID0
(stripping) a pair of HDs, esp. w/ Raptors (I've seen reports of
60MB/sec
or
better, a typical IDE RAID0 might garner 40-43MB/sec).

So unless you go for the Raptors, there's not really much gained w/ SATA
(IMO), esp. since they continue to sell at a premium. Heck, Circuit
City
was dumping 160GB IDE HDs for $20 after rebate the other day (in-store)!
Granted, an extremely awesome and rare deal, but $60 for that same HD at
Circuit City has popped up several times over the past several months.
At
those prices, it's awfully hard to bite on SATA when there's essentially
no
benefits.

HTH

Jim


"Peter B." wrote in message
...
I need to add a new hard drive to my ASUS p4p800 deluxe machine. It
currently has an ATA 100 drive. In the real world, are the SATA drives
that much faster than an ATA drive? I know that they are capable of
operating a 150 MBps, but does that translate into a drive that is 50%
faster than my current drive?

Are there any other advantages or disadvantages to SATA drives?

Pete