1TB hard drive on PATA machine

Any thoughts?

Existing system is PATA only, PCI & AGP, no PCI-E.

PATA drives seem rare and relatively expensive for the amount of storage you
get and at maximum seem to be 500GB. If I want to upgrade this machine to
1TB the only feasible way looks like external firewire drive plus firewire
card. Perhaps my existing old firewire card will suffice.

Alternative would be to upgrade mobo, CPU, memory and graphics - don't
really want to do that quite yet.

Any thoughts?

Pete





--
http://www.petezilla.co.uk

"Peter Chant" wrote:
Any thoughts?

Existing system is PATA only, PCI & AGP, no PCI-E.

PATA drives seem rare and relatively expensive for the amount of storage
you
get and at maximum seem to be 500GB. If I want to upgrade this machine to
1TB the only feasible way looks like external firewire drive plus firewire
card. Perhaps my existing old firewire card will suffice.

Alternative would be to upgrade mobo, CPU, memory and graphics - don't
really want to do that quite yet.

Any thoughts?

Buy two 500GB IDE drives. Or three 320GB IDE drives. Or buy a SATA card
and use those drives.

Jon

Jon Danniken wrote:

"Peter Chant" wrote:
Any thoughts?

Existing system is PATA only, PCI & AGP, no PCI-E.

PATA drives seem rare and relatively expensive for the amount of storage
you
get and at maximum seem to be 500GB. If I want to upgrade this machine
to 1TB the only feasible way looks like external firewire drive plus
firewire
card. Perhaps my existing old firewire card will suffice.

Alternative would be to upgrade mobo, CPU, memory and graphics - don't
really want to do that quite yet.

Any thoughts?

Buy two 500GB IDE drives. Or three 320GB IDE drives. Or buy a SATA card
and use those drives.

I've looked at a couple of large suppliers and they don't seem to stock PCI
SATA cards anymore. 500GB PATA disks are within £10 of 1TB SATAs.
However, you've triggered a thought. Buy 1TB external to replace existing
2nd backup drive and put that (PATA) disk in the PC.

A useful thought. Thanks.

Pete

--
http://www.petezilla.co.uk

"Peter Chant" wrote in message
...



A useful thought. Thanks.

Check this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816132021

I'm using it in 4 comps to connect my Rosewill external eSATA enclosures:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817173042

http://www.flickr.com/photos/joearno...63100/sizes/l/

"Peter Chant" wrote in message
...

A useful thought. Thanks.

This one also adds an internal SATA port, but only one external eSATA
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816124013

On Sat, 09 May 2009 13:24:18 +0100, Peter Chant
wrote:

Existing system is PATA only, PCI & AGP, no PCI-E.

PATA drives seem rare and relatively expensive for the amount of storage you
get and at maximum seem to be 500GB. If I want to upgrade this machine to
1TB the only feasible way looks like external firewire drive plus firewire
card. Perhaps my existing old firewire card will suffice.

Alternative would be to upgrade mobo, CPU, memory and graphics - don't
really want to do that quite yet.

Any thoughts?

First of all: what are your objectives ?
Add 1 TB to an existing system ?
In that case: buy an external drive.

Adding internal SATA drives to a system that doesn't support SATA
is hardly an upgrade. 80 MB/s+ is a reasonable speed for modern
drives. Don't expect any bridged drive to run faster than some
30 MB/s. (I don't mean testbed speed but real speed in a system
like yours, the PATA, PCI & AGP only class PCs)

--
Kind regards,
Gerard Bok

"Gerard Bok" wrote in message
...

Adding internal SATA drives to a system that doesn't support SATA
is hardly an upgrade. 80 MB/s+ is a reasonable speed for modern
drives. Don't expect any bridged drive to run faster than some
30 MB/s. (I don't mean testbed speed but real speed in a system
like yours, the PATA, PCI & AGP only class PCs)

BUT - He *will* have SATA/eSATA, and will still have the drives and
enclosures whenever he upgrades his system.

1D10T wrote:


"Peter Chant" wrote in message
...

A useful thought. Thanks.

This one also adds an internal SATA port, but only one external eSATA
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816124013

Thanks.

UK wise a useful card comes up on amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000UDUBP...1&linkCode=asn

Bit pricey at £24.28 if the pound had not crashed nearly four times dearer
than the ones you suggest. :-(

Don't suppose there is anything to stop me looping a cable from the eSATA
port back into the machine - apart from ugliness.


--
http://www.petezilla.co.uk

Gerard Bok wrote:

First of all: what are your objectives ?
Add 1 TB to an existing system ?
In that case: buy an external drive.


Just bought a digital SLR. Had it just over a week. Only really seriously
used it for three days last weekend. Already have 5GB of new photos, after
deleting bad photos. Photo newsgroup advice, save raw, buy lots of disks!

Though I use this machine most I do have a faster XP machine for editing if
need be, but I store data on linux box.

Adding internal SATA drives to a system that doesn't support SATA
is hardly an upgrade. 80 MB/s+ is a reasonable speed for modern
drives. Don't expect any bridged drive to run faster than some
30 MB/s. (I don't mean testbed speed but real speed in a system
like yours, the PATA, PCI & AGP only class PCs)


That would be an improvement!

--
http://www.petezilla.co.uk

On Sat, 09 May 2009 17:18:41 +0100, Peter Chant
wrote:

Gerard Bok wrote:

First of all: what are your objectives ?
Add 1 TB to an existing system ?
In that case: buy an external drive.

Just bought a digital SLR. Had it just over a week. Only really seriously
used it for three days last weekend. Already have 5GB of new photos, after
deleting bad photos. Photo newsgroup advice, save raw, buy lots of disks!

Yes. And the plural form of 'disks was probably intentional :-)

External disk tend to have relatively high failing rates.
Given their pricetags nowadays you should secure the pictures on
more than one drive.
And it is wise to select one with a minimum of 2 years warranty.

--
Kind regards,
Gerard Bok