Serial ATA

[Tom T]

I am building a computer for my daughter and I want to put my Maxtor 60 gb ata 133 in hers. I would like to replace with the Baracudda ATA 80 GB HD, but not sure if its worth the 138.oo us. I have read that the interface alone was worth the extra dough, but not sure and the speed is a hardly noticable 17 gb per second more than my ata 133 hd. What do you guys think? I have an Asus A7N8X Delux with a 2100 + at 2.167 ghz. A maxtor diamond max ata 133 (quiet), twin sticks of 256 oc system pc 3200 memory. 52x24x52 lite on burner, lite on dvd, lite on 52x cd reader, superdrive samsung floppy, and 100 mb zip. and ati video card 9000 128 pro all sitting in an Antec full size case and a antec 400 wt true power ps. Thanks, Tom

[WesM63]

Hey tom,
I moved this thread to storage & media. It will get more attention here.

I've never used one, we have a demo unit here at work but seagate did'nt send up the power adapter, so we can't test it. I don't really think you'll notice the speed increase. But it's a coolness factor, it will make the case look alot better.

[4.6POWER]

Hi Tom,

I'm not sure I really understand your question, but all of those hard drives you mentioned are pretty high end and I don't think any of them are worth replacing one another. If you need another drive... buy your favortie brand with the best specs. The new S-ATA interface uses less cpu power, if you can support it, I'd say buy one of those.... hope this helps.

4.6

[mdzcpa]

4.6 is right, if buying now SATA might be the way to go. But don't expect a boost in performance over ATA 133 drives. HD speed (rpms) and cache is more important at this point. If you have a good ATA 133 PATA drive I wouldn't spend the money to replace it with a SATA drive.

[sptw]

and to make the things worst, there are a serious troubles with silicon image sata controller on nforce' boards.It seems a drive or bios problem, but not solved yet.People are getting corruption on their hard drivers when connected to serial connectors.It doesn't matter if in Raid or as a single drive.Take a look here (http://forum.abit-usa.com/showthread.php?threadid=3957&perpage=15&pagenumber=1) for ABIT NF7 and here (http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5108&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0) for Asus A7N8X.

[mdzcpa]

Good point sptw. The first thing I did on my NF7 was disable the SATA controller. All I ever got out of my A7N8X was disk errors:(

[sptw]

yeah, Mike, sad thing.I hope the silicon working together with manufacturers can handle it as soon as possible.People are getting to be nervous.

[Tom T]

As usual, liquid ninjas rules! Great advice and solid points from all. I appreciate the input and will probably go with the Maxtor Diamond Max 9 ata 133, 120 gb HD with 8mb cach. Found for 149 shipped (new egg is the best) and there is a 50 rebate at the maxtor sight. Thanks again, Tom:D

[4.6POWER]

take whats said on the abit forums with a grain of salt. that place is overrun with kids who are mounting their heatsinks backwards and upset with their board because it wont overclock to 200 fsb like this. Honestly.... it is filled with newbies who all claim they know what their doing and it is their first system they ever built...

not that it's the final word, but I've been running raid on the s-ata controller ever since I got the board... from original bios all throughout the latest bios, it has never done anything strange or bizarre. I can't believe mike had problems with the asus... it's not like a company like them to put out a board with ports that don't function 100%. Anyway, be sure all of the converters and connecters are seated firmly, as they are a bit free... and could pop off.

[Farabomb]

I agree with 4.6

I've read the thread on the serial issues and even though there is a lot of poeple saying sata is bunk more than a few have had no problems. It is new technology so you have to expect a hicup or two. It's probally a driver issue that being adddressed as we type.

I'm hoping so I'm going to put my 120JB on the sata channel on my max2 and I think its the same controler.....

If 4.6 hasn't had issues I don't think I will. :)

[mdzcpa]

Well guys...the bottom line is that SATA is indeed a hit n miss proposition at this point. Few issues in life are just black and white, and this SATA issue is no different.

Problems with SATA are coming from a combination of early silicon (as sptw mentioned), immature drivers and BIOSes, less then capable SATA converters for those using PATA drives, and general compatability issues typical of early technology.

I had 2 A7N8X mobos. Both gave me SATA corruption. One was eventually fixed...not with a SATA BIOS and driver upgrade....but with swapping to an Abit Serillel adapter and using another PATA drive. The other board died on a BIOS freeze and was RMA'd before I got that one ironed out.

I have no doubt that there are many happy SATA users out there. But, that was not the point I was making. With no real performance gains to be had from going to SATA, I just see no reason to use it. One the up side, you have have chance that everything works out right and end up with performance equivalent to PATA. On the down side you have a bunch of problems.

I'm not knocking SATA as a technology...it's coming for everyone in time. It's just not up for prime time just yet....IMOHO. Without any performance benefit, I just don't see why anyone would want to take the risk.

[4.6POWER]

well... there you go, anyone looking to depend on sata- I would have to go with mike's advice. It is obvisously not a 100% builtproof solution just yet. Typically, when new hardware is introduced, it should be compatible with almost all other hardware.... but it seems the converters used, hard drives used, and mobo's they are installed on... all seem to make a difference on the operation. They should be making a list of hardware that doesn't work right now... and start ironing that out.

with that said... here's what I have, and its working perfectly:
Abit NF7-S ver 1.0
2 identical IBM 75GXP drives
2 abit serillel converters
Raid 0

If you have that combo, I would say it's safe! Also- I hear the abit serillels are doing the best.

[mdzcpa]

Originally posted by 4.6POWER
Also- I hear the abit serillels are doing the best.

I would agree. These are actually the only converters I would recommend uisng at the moment.

[Tom T]

I'v been doing a lot of reading on this and from what I have seen, the new serial ata drives are existing technology with a new serial ata interface.When you do hook it up, because the sata controller has to go through the pci bus, performance is severly restricted. It won't be until summer sometime before serial ata will be included in the core logic, and from what I understand, this has to happen before serial ata can begin to move towards its potential. I also read that the controller may be included in the chipsets by that time. Since all you have to do is spend 25 bucks for a connecter for yor existing harddrive in order to use the severly lemited serial feature, that would be the way to go for now. I settled for the diamond max 9 80 gig ata 133 7200 8mb hd rom maxtor. From the tests I have seen, this drive outperforms the seagate serial drive in most test( read and write). I may get a controller for 25 bucks and see if there is a noticable difference. At least this way, since serial ata seems to be hit and miss at the moment, and the 25 dollar interface controller we give me the same performance, I can revert back to ide in the event the serial ata becomes to big a headache. Tom. Like Mike said, in time serial ata can be great, but not just yet.