PATA or SATA?

silvias13 · 12-31-2005, 03:35 PM

Hi all, I'm new to this forum and I need your expert opinions.

I'm looking to expand and upgrade my hard drives and I was wondering if I should stick with PATA or upgrade to SATA? My current hard drives are two ATA/133 Maxtor 80GB 7200RPM and my motherboard is the Asus A7N8X Deluxe. I realize that the SATA is faster but will it be noticeable? Is it worth the upgrade?

igalan · 01-02-2006, 07:35 AM

Right now I think that the main advantage of S-ATA is cabling: thinner cables means better air-flow and easier placement of devices. It won't perform faster because of the interface alone. And because almost all optical drives are still P-ATA, I don't think that there is much to gain unless you can go to a full S-ATA system (Plextor does have a S-ATA DVD burner, but it's pricy!). But S-ATA is the future, so if you're planning a future system upgrade, then I would go for S-ATA, that my opinion

.

Remember that when you install Windows XP on a S-ATA disk, you need a floppy with the driver to access the drive or else it won't find it.

silvias13 · 01-02-2006, 09:23 PM

Thanks "igalan" for your opinion.
I was wondering, can I use those 2 kinds of hard drives together on the same motherboard? Will it work if my master drive was SATA and my slave is PATA or vice versa?

igalan · 01-03-2006, 11:05 AM

Yes, this works in all the motherboards that I've tested. With S-ATA there is no longer master-slave, all devices are "masters" and connect directly to the motherboard. Additional P-ATA diveces connect as master for the first one, and slave for the next one for each channel regardless of S-ATA devices (as in any non S-ATA board).

So you can boot from a S-ATA drive, while a master P-ATA drive and a slave P-ATA DVD burner (for instance) are connected at the same time. However this set up may requiere some fiddling with the BIOS so the S-ATA drive is the first to boot, and then some fiddling with Windows XP so it installs in the S-ATA drive.

12-31-2005, 03:35 PM	#1 (permalink)
silvias13 Registered User Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 5	PATA or SATA? Hi all, I'm new to this forum and I need your expert opinions. I'm looking to expand and upgrade my hard drives and I was wondering if I should stick with PATA or upgrade to SATA? My current hard drives are two ATA/133 Maxtor 80GB 7200RPM and my motherboard is the Asus A7N8X Deluxe. I realize that the SATA is faster but will it be noticeable? Is it worth the upgrade?

01-02-2006, 07:35 AM	#2 (permalink)
igalan PCTT Articles Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Barcelona, SPAIN Posts: 1,018	Right now I think that the main advantage of S-ATA is cabling: thinner cables means better air-flow and easier placement of devices. It won't perform faster because of the interface alone. And because almost all optical drives are still P-ATA, I don't think that there is much to gain unless you can go to a full S-ATA system (Plextor does have a S-ATA DVD burner, but it's pricy!). But S-ATA is the future, so if you're planning a future system upgrade, then I would go for S-ATA, that my opinion . Remember that when you install Windows XP on a S-ATA disk, you need a floppy with the driver to access the drive or else it won't find it. __________________ AMD64 X2 3800+, Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe, 2 GB RAM, GeForce 6600GT, Windows XP Home SP2

01-03-2006, 11:05 AM	#4 (permalink)
igalan PCTT Articles Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Barcelona, SPAIN Posts: 1,018	Yes, this works in all the motherboards that I've tested. With S-ATA there is no longer master-slave, all devices are "masters" and connect directly to the motherboard. Additional P-ATA diveces connect as master for the first one, and slave for the next one for each channel regardless of S-ATA devices (as in any non S-ATA board). So you can boot from a S-ATA drive, while a master P-ATA drive and a slave P-ATA DVD burner (for instance) are connected at the same time. However this set up may requiere some fiddling with the BIOS so the S-ATA drive is the first to boot, and then some fiddling with Windows XP so it installs in the S-ATA drive. __________________ AMD64 X2 3800+, Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe, 2 GB RAM, GeForce 6600GT, Windows XP Home SP2

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01-02-2006, 09:23 PM	#3 (permalink)
silvias13 Registered User Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 5	Thanks "igalan" for your opinion. I was wondering, can I use those 2 kinds of hard drives together on the same motherboard? Will it work if my master drive was SATA and my slave is PATA or vice versa?