Part 2 of thread: Not internal SATA/PATA but external

Am in the UK. On 21st June I posted here that I wanted to get a bargain
250 GB Samsung hard drive.

I asked if I should get SATA or PATA for my oldish system Via SV266A
mobo with Duron 1800 cpu and 768MB SD-RAM.

I have many medium sized PATA drives and do not need another one to
leave on this system when I migrate to a mobo with native SATA support.

However there was some doubt if my SV266A chipset would mean that a PCI
SATA adapter would slow the transfer rate noticeably.

So how about using an external drive (I guess would be SATA but that is
possibly academic) which goes in through USB 2.0. That way it could be
transferred from old to new systems.

The USB enclosure costs exactly the same as the PCI adapter card for my
existing mobo to take SATA.

Apart from uncertainty about booting (I am on XP) from the USB drive,
are there any other problems I should bear in mind?

"Warra" wrote in message
...
Am in the UK. On 21st June I posted here that I wanted to get a bargain
250 GB Samsung hard drive.

I asked if I should get SATA or PATA for my oldish system Via SV266A
mobo with Duron 1800 cpu and 768MB SD-RAM.

I have many medium sized PATA drives and do not need another one to
leave on this system when I migrate to a mobo with native SATA support.

However there was some doubt if my SV266A chipset would mean that a PCI
SATA adapter would slow the transfer rate noticeably.

So how about using an external drive (I guess would be SATA but that is
possibly academic) which goes in through USB 2.0. That way it could be
transferred from old to new systems.

The USB enclosure costs exactly the same as the PCI adapter card for my
existing mobo to take SATA.

Apart from uncertainty about booting (I am on XP) from the USB drive,
are there any other problems I should bear in mind?

Two items I can think of first is buy an enclosure with it own power supply
some manufacturers make a point of recommending this as USB struggles to
power a drive in continous use.
The other is a number of driveenclosure are not recognised correctly by XP
( we have had 2 different ) as they are cheap I would pay a little more and
buy one from a local dealer rather than mail order you are more likely to
get advice on a suitable enclosure that way rather than relying on returning
one that doesnt work with your system.
Derek

Warra wrote:
Am in the UK. On 21st June I posted here that I wanted to get a
bargain 250 GB Samsung hard drive.

I asked if I should get SATA or PATA for my oldish system Via SV266A
mobo with Duron 1800 cpu and 768MB SD-RAM.

I have many medium sized PATA drives and do not need another one to
leave on this system when I migrate to a mobo with native SATA
support.

However there was some doubt if my SV266A chipset would mean that a
PCI SATA adapter would slow the transfer rate noticeably.

So how about using an external drive (I guess would be SATA but that
is possibly academic) which goes in through USB 2.0. That way it
could be transferred from old to new systems.

The USB enclosure costs exactly the same as the PCI adapter card for
my existing mobo to take SATA.

Apart from uncertainty about booting (I am on XP) from the USB drive,
are there any other problems I should bear in mind?

A couple of things come to mind.

1. Make sure the USB enclosure actually supports the size and type of hard
drive you plan to stick in it. Some support 3.5 SATA, some 3.5 PATA, and
some the small laptop sized drives.

2. You need check out your motherboard's BIOS settings and see if there is
an option to "Boot from USB" or something similar if you plan to try booting
from the USB drive. Most newer motherboards have it as an option but many
older BIOS versions do not.

In article , Warra
wrote:

Am in the UK. On 21st June I posted here that I wanted to get a bargain
250 GB Samsung hard drive.

I asked if I should get SATA or PATA for my oldish system Via SV266A
mobo with Duron 1800 cpu and 768MB SD-RAM.

I have many medium sized PATA drives and do not need another one to
leave on this system when I migrate to a mobo with native SATA support.

However there was some doubt if my SV266A chipset would mean that a PCI
SATA adapter would slow the transfer rate noticeably.

So how about using an external drive (I guess would be SATA but that is
possibly academic) which goes in through USB 2.0. That way it could be
transferred from old to new systems.

The USB enclosure costs exactly the same as the PCI adapter card for my
existing mobo to take SATA.

Apart from uncertainty about booting (I am on XP) from the USB drive,
are there any other problems I should bear in mind?

The problem with this plan, is external enclosures are quite
variable in quality. I've seen a number of comments on Newegg,
about how the enclosure and drive run hot, because the enclosure
had no fans.

I think somewhere along the way, there must have been a flaw in
the logic.

On my Firewire enclosure, I think I got 30MB/sec. Daisy chaining
two Firewire enclosures, the second enclosure managed 20MB/sec.
The Firewire bridge board inside the Firewire enclosure, actually
limited the Firewire to Firewire traffic, more than the disk to
Firewire path.

On my USB2 enclosure, I got about 35MB/sec. And the bridge board
in that case, was an Oxford. There are plenty of other USB2
enclosures that will give under 33MB/sec and probably less.
57MB/sec is the theoretical maximum, and I've never heard of
an enclosure even getting close to that.

You believe the PCI bus in your computer is limited to 60MB/sec.
The beginning section of a 7200RPM disk drive, manages about
60MB/sec in sustained transfer rate. It doesn't matter
if the interface is PATA or SATA, the rate the data is put on
disk, is limited by the head assembly and data density on the
disk.

Now, if you purchase a PCI SATA controller, mount your SATA
hard drive inside the computer, even if the PCI bus only
allows 60MB/sec, the hard drive is not going to go faster
than that anyway. And notice how 60MB/sec, is faster than
either USB2 or Firewire 400 results listed above.

I think you should stay away from the external enclosures,
since the majority of enclosures are crappy designs both
mechanically and physically. I think I got a good
enclosure the last time I bought one, and I ended up
drilling holes in the case, to get enough air circulation
to keep the hard drive cool.

If you mount your new SATA drive inside the computer, the
power and cooling come for free. The only additional
expense, is the PCI SATA card for about $25 or less.
You can use cheap internal SATA cabling to connect
the controller card to the disk. Just remember to
buy a controller card, with the right connector for the
job. An internal disk needs a connector mounted internal
to the computer. An external disk needs a connector
mounted on the PCI faceplate.

The last good looking SATA external enclosure I saw, was
an expensive quad. The single drive enclosures are generally
awful, and could well kill your new drive, before it gets to
see your next computer.

Paul

Warra wrote:

Am in the UK. On 21st June I posted here that I wanted to get a bargain
250 GB Samsung hard drive.

I asked if I should get SATA or PATA for my oldish system Via SV266A
mobo with Duron 1800 cpu and 768MB SD-RAM.

I have many medium sized PATA drives and do not need another one to
leave on this system when I migrate to a mobo with native SATA support.

However there was some doubt if my SV266A chipset would mean that a PCI
SATA adapter would slow the transfer rate noticeably.

So how about using an external drive (I guess would be SATA but that is
possibly academic) which goes in through USB 2.0. That way it could be
transferred from old to new systems.

The USB enclosure costs exactly the same as the PCI adapter card for my
existing mobo to take SATA.

Apart from uncertainty about booting (I am on XP) from the USB drive,
are there any other problems I should bear in mind?

If you've got the drives, use them. Putting them in an external
enclosure and connecting through USB is easy.

"Paul" wrote in message
In article , Warra
wrote:

Am in the UK. On 21st June I posted here that I wanted to get a bargain
250 GB Samsung hard drive.

I asked if I should get SATA or PATA for my oldish system Via SV266A
mobo with Duron 1800 cpu and 768MB SD-RAM.

I have many medium sized PATA drives and do not need another one to
leave on this system when I migrate to a mobo with native SATA support.

However there was some doubt if my SV266A chipset would mean that a PCI
SATA adapter would slow the transfer rate noticeably.

So how about using an external drive (I guess would be SATA but that is
possibly academic) which goes in through USB 2.0. That way it could be
transferred from old to new systems.

The USB enclosure costs exactly the same as the PCI adapter card for my
existing mobo to take SATA.

Apart from uncertainty about booting (I am on XP) from the USB drive,
are there any other problems I should bear in mind?

The problem with this plan, is external enclosures are quite variable
in quality. I've seen a number of comments on Newegg, about how
the enclosure and drive run hot, because the enclosure had no fans.

I think somewhere along the way, there must have been a flaw in the logic.

On my Firewire enclosure, I think I got 30MB/sec. Daisy chaining
two Firewire enclosures, the second enclosure managed 20MB/sec.
The Firewire bridge board inside the Firewire enclosure, actually
limited the Firewire to Firewire traffic, more than the disk to
Firewire path.

On my USB2 enclosure, I got about 35MB/sec. And the bridge board
in that case, was an Oxford. There are plenty of other USB2
enclosures that will give under 33MB/sec and probably less.

57MB/sec is the theoretical maximum,

No, it is not. That is just the bit frequency of the bus divided by 8, -5%.
Where did you get that 5% from.
No way that the serial bus protocol PLUS the ATA protocoll only costs 5%.
IDE (ATA) already had 10% overhead by it's own.
Think more of 30% for USB which would bring the maximum to 42MB/s.

and I've never heard of an enclosure even getting close to that.

You believe the PCI bus in your computer is limited to 60MB/sec.
The beginning section of a 7200RPM disk drive, manages about
60MB/sec in sustained transfer rate. It doesn't matter if the
interface is PATA or SATA, the rate the data is put on disk,
is limited by the head assembly and data density on the disk.

Now, if you purchase a PCI SATA controller, mount your SATA
hard drive inside the computer, even if the PCI bus only allows
60MB/sec,

the hard drive is not going to go faster than that anyway.

Nope, but it still needs more than 60MB/s to allow for command overhead.

And notice how 60MB/sec, is faster than either USB2 or Firewire 400
results listed above.

I think you should stay away from the external enclosures, since the majority
of enclosures are crappy designs both mechanically and physically. I think
I got a good enclosure the last time I bought one, and I ended up drilling
holes in the case, to get enough air circulation to keep the hard drive cool.

If you mount your new SATA drive inside the computer, the power and cooling
come for free. The only additional expense, is the PCI SATA card for about
$25 or less. You can use cheap internal SATA cabling to connect the controller
card to the disk. Just remember to buy a controller card, with the right connector
for the job. An internal disk needs a connector mounted internal to the computer.
An external disk needs a connector mounted on the PCI faceplate.

The last good looking SATA external enclosure I saw, was an expensive quad.
The single drive enclosures are generally awful, and could well kill your new drive,
before it gets to see your next computer.

Paul

USB HD enclosures can turn out to be pretty slow.

Nero says that mine only manages 17 Mb/s. The HD in it is good for twice
that.


--
Ed Light

Smiley :-/
MS Smiley :-\

Send spam to the FTC at

Thanks, robots.

Bring the Troops Home:
http://bringthemhomenow.org

On Mon, 10 Jul 2006 23:37:31 +0100, Warra
wrote:

Am in the UK. On 21st June I posted here that I wanted to get a bargain
250 GB Samsung hard drive.

I asked if I should get SATA or PATA for my oldish system Via SV266A
mobo with Duron 1800 cpu and 768MB SD-RAM.

I have many medium sized PATA drives and do not need another one to
leave on this system when I migrate to a mobo with native SATA support.

You don't have to, migrating to a mobo with native SATA
doesn't mean it won't have PATA. Practically all the
current boards with SATA do have at least one PATA channel.

It is a good match having many medium sized PATA, plus
another drive, all on that old system? I'd wonder if it's
time to remove one of the smaller drives as they may not be
so reliable anymore or soon not so.




However there was some doubt if my SV266A chipset would mean that a PCI
SATA adapter would slow the transfer rate noticeably.


It depends on what you're doing. If it's only to backup
files, you might not notice. For some other uses you
wouldn't either, but anything very demanding of disk I/O you
may notice.



So how about using an external drive (I guess would be SATA ...

Many (most) are PATA, not SATA. Obviously with SATA being
newer, more and more external SATA are showing up in the
market.

...but that is
possibly academic) which goes in through USB 2.0. That way it could be
transferred from old to new systems.

That will be even slower than an SATA PCI card. Buy an
external enclosure only if you "need" it to be an external
enclosure.


The USB enclosure costs exactly the same as the PCI adapter card for my
existing mobo to take SATA.

I have no idea what two products you are comparing but
generally a decent SATA card can be had for less money than
a decent external enclosure.



Apart from uncertainty about booting (I am on XP) from the USB drive,

Don't- Do not plan on booting from the USB drive to run a
big OS like XP, it will be significantly slower.

Run your operating system from a hard drive connected
directly to the motherboard PATA controller. A modern PATA
drive will be significantly faster than any other
budget-conscious alternative. By that I mean, you could get
an SATA card and a relatively expensive WD Raptor, or a SCSI
PCI card and high RPM SCSI drive(s) and the raw drive
performance would offset the performance penalty from it
being a PCI card on the PCI bus of your Via chipset
motherboard, but it's an expensive way to end up with
sub-optimal performance, it would be better to replace the
system before (instead of) that.


are there any other problems I should bear in mind?


Your best option is to buy a PATA hard drive.

If/when you buy a new system it should have at least one
PATA channel. If you waited SO LONG that it didn't have
PATA anymore, THEN you would buy a PCI card.

Any other option is either slower or far more expensive, or
both.

kony wrote
Warra wrote

Am in the UK. On 21st June I posted here that I
wanted to get a bargain 250 GB Samsung hard drive.

I asked if I should get SATA or PATA for my oldish system
Via SV266A mobo with Duron 1800 cpu and 768MB SD-RAM.

I have many medium sized PATA drives and do not need another one to
leave on this system when I migrate to a mobo with native SATA support.

You don't have to, migrating to a mobo with native SATA
doesn't mean it won't have PATA. Practically all the
current boards with SATA do have at least one PATA channel.

And plenty have just one, which can be a real
problem if you have to use that for the boot drive.

Add just one DVD burner and all your PATA channels are gone.

It is a good match having many medium sized
PATA, plus another drive, all on that old system?

He clearly wants to use it on the new system.

I'd wonder if it's time to remove one of the smaller drives
as they may not be so reliable anymore or soon not so.

Mindlessly silly.

However there was some doubt if my SV266A chipset would mean
that a PCI SATA adapter would slow the transfer rate noticeably.

It depends on what you're doing. If it's
only to backup files, you might not notice.

Depending on how backup is done, that may
actually be the most demanding use of the drive.

For some other uses you wouldn't either, but anything
very demanding of disk I/O you may notice.

Which most backup is.

So how about using an external drive (I guess would be SATA ...

Many (most) are PATA, not SATA.

Irrelevant as long as those that are SATA are the same value.

Obviously with SATA being newer, more and more
external SATA are showing up in the market.

...but that is possibly academic) which goes in through USB 2.0.
That way it could be transferred from old to new systems.

That will be even slower than an SATA PCI card. Buy an external
enclosure only if you "need" it to be an external enclosure.

Or when external enclosures are better value than
SATA PCI cards and you dont care about thruput.

The USB enclosure costs exactly the same as the
PCI adapter card for my existing mobo to take SATA.

I have no idea what two products you are comparing but generally a decent
SATA card can be had for less money than a decent external enclosure.

He isnt prepared to use ebay to get the best prices on PCI SATA cards.

Apart from uncertainty about booting (I am on XP) from the USB drive,

Don't- Do not plan on booting from the USB drive to
run a big OS like XP, it will be significantly slower.

Run your operating system from a hard drive connected
directly to the motherboard PATA controller. A modern
PATA drive will be significantly faster than any other
budget-conscious alternative. By that I mean, you could get
an SATA card and a relatively expensive WD Raptor,

He clearly said he wants to use a bargain hard drive.

or a SCSI PCI card and high RPM SCSI drive(s)
and the raw drive performance would offset the
performance penalty from it being a PCI card on
the PCI bus of your Via chipset motherboard,

He clearly said he wants to use a bargain hard drive.

but it's an expensive way to end up with sub-optimal
performance, it would be better to replace the
system before (instead of) that.

So it was pointless considering this alternative.

are there any other problems I should bear in mind?

Your best option is to buy a PATA hard drive.

Nope, you limit your choices of a new system too much.

If/when you buy a new system it should
have at least one PATA channel.

And if its only got one, its full straight away.

If you waited SO LONG that it didn't have PATA
anymore, THEN you would buy a PCI card.

Makes a lot more sense to have bought SATA instead.

Any other option is either slower

You havent established that with a PCI SATA card.

or far more expensive, or both.

On 12 Jul 2006, Rod wrote:

kony wrote
Warra wrote

Am in the UK. On 21st June I posted here that I
wanted to get a bargain 250 GB Samsung hard drive.

I asked if I should get SATA or PATA for my oldish system
Via SV266A mobo with Duron 1800 cpu and 768MB SD-RAM.

I have many medium sized PATA drives and do not need another one
to leave on this system when I migrate to a mobo with native SATA
support.

You don't have to, migrating to a mobo with native SATA
doesn't mean it won't have PATA. Practically all the
current boards with SATA do have at least one PATA channel.

And plenty have just one, which can be a real
problem if you have to use that for the boot drive.

Add just one DVD burner and all your PATA channels are gone.


As OP, I have to say this is a persuasive argument.

It seems I would currently have difficulty attaching three PATA
drives to a mobo. In the future there seems to be even less chance of
being able to do this.


It is a good match having many medium sized
PATA, plus another drive, all on that old system?

He clearly wants to use it on the new system.

I'd wonder if it's time to remove one of the smaller drives
as they may not be so reliable anymore or soon not so.

Mindlessly silly.

However there was some doubt if my SV266A chipset would mean
that a PCI SATA adapter would slow the transfer rate noticeably.

It depends on what you're doing. If it's
only to backup files, you might not notice.

Depending on how backup is done, that may
actually be the most demanding use of the drive.

For some other uses you wouldn't either, but anything
very demanding of disk I/O you may notice.

Which most backup is.

So how about using an external drive (I guess would be SATA ...

Many (most) are PATA, not SATA.

Irrelevant as long as those that are SATA are the same value.

Obviously with SATA being newer, more and more
external SATA are showing up in the market.

...but that is possibly academic) which goes in through USB 2.0.
That way it could be transferred from old to new systems.

That will be even slower than an SATA PCI card. Buy an external
enclosure only if you "need" it to be an external enclosure.

Or when external enclosures are better value than
SATA PCI cards and you dont care about thruput.

The USB enclosure costs exactly the same as the
PCI adapter card for my existing mobo to take SATA.

I have no idea what two products you are comparing but generally a
decent SATA card can be had for less money than a decent external
enclosure.

He isnt prepared to use ebay to get the best prices on PCI SATA
cards.

Apart from uncertainty about booting (I am on XP) from the USB
drive,

Don't- Do not plan on booting from the USB drive to
run a big OS like XP, it will be significantly slower.

Run your operating system from a hard drive connected
directly to the motherboard PATA controller. A modern
PATA drive will be significantly faster than any other
budget-conscious alternative. By that I mean, you could get
an SATA card and a relatively expensive WD Raptor,

He clearly said he wants to use a bargain hard drive.

or a SCSI PCI card and high RPM SCSI drive(s)
and the raw drive performance would offset the
performance penalty from it being a PCI card on
the PCI bus of your Via chipset motherboard,

He clearly said he wants to use a bargain hard drive.

but it's an expensive way to end up with sub-optimal
performance, it would be better to replace the
system before (instead of) that.

So it was pointless considering this alternative.

are there any other problems I should bear in mind?

Your best option is to buy a PATA hard drive.

Nope, you limit your choices of a new system too much.

If/when you buy a new system it should
have at least one PATA channel.

And if its only got one, its full straight away.

If you waited SO LONG that it didn't have PATA
anymore, THEN you would buy a PCI card.

Makes a lot more sense to have bought SATA instead.

Any other option is either slower

You havent established that with a PCI SATA card.

or far more expensive, or both.