SATA vs ATA

[Silenced]

Ive been reading mag articles and all kinds of other stuff, and im trying to decide whats better for a gaming PC. Should i go with the SATA or the ATA HD. Ive noticed that the SATA sometimes runs faster and smoothier but also the ATA has its moments to run just as fast. Are PC's going to start to upgrade to just a SATA connection or should i stay with the ATA.

Thanks a lot guys for any advice.

[WesM63]

Silenced,
Right now there is no SATA advantage over ATA. The speeds on paper are faster, but in the real world there is no diffrence. We have tested seagates 80Gb SATA version here at work, and in benchmarks It performs on par with any westren digital ATA133 Drive.

So right now, I don't think the extra cash Is worth one unless its really a coolness factor. Or you just gotta have one.

[JohnnyD]

Wes - how did you bench that ? Mines due today I'd be glad to run the numbers once the system is up and running to check against what you've gotten.

BTW .. isn't it true this is 1st geeration SATA 150 and that SATA 300 & 600 are in the pipleline *EVENTUALLY* ? Have you heard what the upgrade path is going to be for improved SATA ? Plus don't forget even if speeds are the same SATA has cool cables that don't restrict airflow *grin*.

[mdzcpa]

Although SATA is the way it will be for everyone eventually, I'm still of the opinion that current SATA technology is still too underbaked to invest any serious cash in it. I wouldn't be against giving SATA whirl if your mobo has SATA support and came with a converter to use on an existing hard drive. But I'd be hard pressed to spend any money on SATA drives, SATA converters, and or SATA controller cards.

Although many find SATA to work just fine (albeit with no performance gains over parallel ATA at this point), quite a large number of early SATA adopters have been burned big time by HD corruption and such. The technology is just not worked out yet.

Given all that, you won't see mobos go to strictly SATA for a while yet. We'll probably see boards with both SATA and PATA for at least a year and half...likely longer. I'm expecting the technology to have most of the bugs worked out and be worth investing in by this winter or next spring. Until then, it's just a lot of risk with little to gain.

[Drake]

westren digital ATA133 Drive.Thought all WD's were ATA100? Eh...

Anywho, I'm interested in seeing what Canterwood does for SATA, seeing how the controller is integrated in the southbridge and not restricted by the PCI bus. If the performance is near the same, then that's a sure sign that the technology isn't quite ready.

My vote would be a WD 8MB cache drive. I got one two weeks ago and the difference between my old IBM is noticeable :)

[sptw]

Agree all.There's no SATA advantage over ATA for now.Of course a thin cable is a thing to think about, if it's really important for you.Yeah, Mike is right, there's a problem with some SATA controller getting corruption datas.In my opinion SATA is the way, and for me ATA is in the past.Maybe one more year to mature the tecnology and it will be the best choice, but for now my choice would be ATA.
Only for you know, the new king of the hill on the market is one SATA driver.There's nothing better, but it's not related to the SATA technology, instead with 10,000 RPM rotational disk speed.The new WD RAPTOR Enterprise Serial Ata Hard Drive (http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/WD360GD.asp) is the best HD IDE hd on the market in my opinion.There's no ATA version, only SATA and only with 36 GB.It matches the SCSI performance and reliability and all at up to 30 percent less cost than Parallel SCSI drives.The MTBF has been calculated at 1.2 million hours.You can't find it in the US yet, only in Japan (http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/akiba/hotline/20030405/raptor.html).There's a pre-order (http://store.westerndigital.com/product.asp?sku=1496302) on WD' Site for about $199.00.Yeah, a bit expensive for only 36 GB, but it worths the money for performance and reliability.This drive will be a good choice for this (http://www.3ware.com/products/serial_ata.asp) and mobo with a 64 bit/33mhz or 64-bit / 66 MHz slots also.Of course it's a kind of expensive, but really fast.For a mobo with onboard controller like Promise or Silicon, forget, go for the ATA drivers and you're fine.
In case of interest for this new WD Raptor, Storage Review.com has a excellent
Review (http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200303/20030320WD360GD_1.html) about.

[Tom T]

Hey mike, I read somewhere that the sata controller was having to go through the pci bus and that was a major performance hit. Probably due to a rush to market mentallity. I aslo read somewhere that the controller was supposed to be introduced in the core logic sometime this summer-I gusess we'll have to wait and see...:(

[Drake]

Originally posted by Tom T
Hey mike, I read somewhere that the sata controller was having to go through the pci bus and that was a major performance hit. Probably due to a rush to market mentallity. I aslo read somewhere that the controller was supposed to be introduced in the core logic sometime this summer-I gusess we'll have to wait and see...:( The Canterwood chipset integrates a SATA controller into the southbridge, so there should be no PCI bus limitations.

[sptw]

what was once known as Canterwood, is now publicly available as the Intel 875P chipset.Although Intel 875P chipset; southbridge to be precise; has an integrate Serial ATA controller, it continue limited to 150 MB/s by the intregated controller.Bandwidth between southbridge and northbridge is another story.Maybe in the near future we can see a 300 MB/s serial ATA controller.
Another mistake is this thing about the sata controller connected to the PCI bus.Every devices are connected to the PCI bus (AGP bus is a kind of PCI bus), and most of the mobo are limited for the PCI bus, that is 133 MB/s, in theory, and 127 MB/s in pratice.Promise and Highpoint ATA Raid controller on board are connected to the PCI bus, SATA on board controllers are connected to the PCI bus too, but all of them are limited to PCI bus: 133 MB/s.Of course there are other chipsets (dual mobo, server mobo) that the story change a lot, but the SATA controllers are still limited to 150 MB/s.
I hope this help to clarify.

[Drake]

it continue limited to 150 MB/s by the intregated controller...

I hope this help to clarify.That's what I was trying to say :rolleyes:

Besides, it's 2004, I believe, that the second generation of SATA is scheduled to appear, so we'll have to settle for 150MB/s 'til then.

[sptw]

Besides, it's 2004, I believe, that the second generation of SATA is scheduled to appear, so we'll have to settle for 150MB/s 'til then.

I hope so too :)

[mdzcpa]

Good detailed info there sptw:) Spot on as usual.

[JohnnyD]

Wes - the Seagate V is doing fine so far as a single drive on the controller no partitions etc .... I have my Adaptec 2940 u2w SCSI card in the old box would like to compare drive speeds. Whats the benchmark program you used ?

[WesM63]

JohnnyD,
We just used sandra's HDD test on each HDD and compared numbers.