View Full Version : SATA or PATA drive?
rsachoc
10-10-2005, 01:27 PM
Hi guys
I am buying a new drive, around 250gig, and was wondering if I should go for a SATA or PATA drive. The drive I am looking at is a Seagate 250gig, available in both flavours. My board also has a SATA connector, so this isnt a problem?
Any help appreciated
thisgeek
10-10-2005, 01:33 PM
Rather go SATA. Bear in mind you can only have one drive per channel with SATA, as opposed to the 2 drives per channel for PATA.
Angellus
10-10-2005, 01:38 PM
IF you have the choice go for the SATA drive. IDE drives are the older generation. I have two identical Seagate 160GB drives. One is SATA and one is PATA/IDE. No real performance difference just smaller cables and a newer interface.
photonman
10-10-2005, 01:48 PM
-sata is supposed to be faster than pata
-sata is hot swap-able(not sure how to spell...)
-also make sure u have the power connectors for sata.
-the min amount of sata connections today is like 2, so that means u can have theoretically 6 drives...
-if u can go for western digital drives! - they are the best, but ya might pay a little more fir it than the seagate.
..............
rburley
10-10-2005, 02:09 PM
nothin is wrong with seagate drives tho, i hav only used them and no prob's
EDIT: touch wood
Angellus
10-10-2005, 02:12 PM
-sata is supposed to be faster than pata
-sata is hot swap-able(not sure how to spell...)
-also make sure u have the power connectors for sata.
-the min amount of sata connections today is like 2, so that means u can have theoretically 6 drives...
-if u can go for western digital drives! - they are the best, but ya might pay a little more fir it than the seagate.
..............
1. The SATA interface is faster but it will make no real difference because PATA runs at either 100 or 133MB. HD's only get up to around 60MB max. SATA runs at 150 and even the WD Raptor drives only get up to around 75MB/s
2. DONT BUY WESTERN DIGITAL, I have had many friends WD's fail on them. The only WD's worth taking a look at are the Raptors but then again the 400GB Seagate is pretty much just as fast.
I have been running Seagate drives for around 10 years. Never had any problems because of the drive. Did lose all my Data once becuase windows didn't support the 160GB drive, only supported up to 128GB. (The LBA patch for windows did fix this though) SATA does not have this limitation though.
stoke
10-10-2005, 02:28 PM
Segate Baracuda vs Western Digital SATA's:
I've got 2 machines with identical configurations.
When initially setup, they were both 2 80GB Baracuda's.
I purchased 2 more WD's and about 4 months later, one the one machine the Baracuda started reporting massive amounts of bad sectors, then about a month later the other machine had similar carp with the WD drive.
Now that's just wierd in my book, but it does make a point - sometimes they throw in a couple of duds in the box that they send to RSA.
Make sure you can swap the drive's back[with the supplier], and make sure you're mirroring.
rsachoc
10-10-2005, 02:32 PM
OK!
Thanks guys, will definately go SATA then, gonna go home and check I have a SATA drive cable and power cable. Think I got one with my board. I have heard things about my board and SATA support, hopefully I will not have any problems.
The Seagate's have a 5 year warranty, which I think is pretty good.
Thanks!
photonman
10-10-2005, 02:54 PM
hey angellus, maybe i just got the bad apple amongst the lot of seagates
ive found Western digitals to be the most stable.
ive had a problem the with maxtor 160gb the most...ive had 3 already and some how or another they start actin up...ie: boot write errors etc
Angellus
10-10-2005, 03:31 PM
hey angellus, maybe i just got the bad apple amongst the lot of seagates
ive found Western digitals to be the most stable.
ive had a problem the with maxtor 160gb the most...ive had 3 already and some how or another they start actin up...ie: boot write errors etc
I have to say t he only HD's I have ever had have been Seagates. My friends have had WD, Maxtor and Hitachi. I am the only one who has never had a hardware related failure. Maybe I am just really lucky. If WD works for you then great but I have heard to many bad things about them.
The Raptor Drives are great though.
DragonLogos
11-10-2005, 12:05 AM
Well one thing about SATA is OS... for example they do not work for Windows 98
Seagates are OK... They went through a rough patch a little while back, story goes they opened a new factory and had problems with drives going down, again rumour has it the five year warranty was to try and get people (and dealers) back
I must admit I am not a great fan of Western Digital drives, but as with anything, if you have vital data or a complicated set-up remember the four rules of back-up - They are Back-up Back-Up and BACK UP (and don't forget to verify)
Regarding ATA 100 and above - While it is true that a drive's sustained data transfer will not go above 60 Megs a second, the cache RAM is capable of working at these speeds and while this is small (2 - 8 megs) combined with the sustained transfer it is capable of give bursts of high speed transfer that taper off after a few seconds. This will make a system very zippy when handling a cluster of files of say about 50 - 60 megs - But would be of no advantage for a system that requires sustained data transfer, for example a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) or Video Production System
Scooby_Doo
11-10-2005, 01:07 AM
I've gone through 4 WD drives in 18 months... i named the 1st one bob the 1st and now i'm on bob the 4th... I'm strange i know.
thisgeek
11-10-2005, 06:59 AM
I've only had good experiences with Seagates - I've had one bad drive from them, but a warranty swap out sorted that. I've had a couple of WD's fail on me (out of warranty, typically).
All in all, I'd say that Seagate drives are the most reliable. Stay far away from Maxtor. Everybody I know that has had Maxtor drives has had them fail.
DFantom
11-10-2005, 08:10 AM
-sata is supposed to be faster than pata
At the moment I have not seen it in my own testing. Possibly with SATA2 or 3 it should get faster
-the min amount of sata connections today is like 2, so that means u can have theoretically 6 drives...
I have this odd memory that SATA is daisy chainable, much like USB. In such as case there is likely a much higher limit than 6.
-if u can go for western digital drives! - they are the best, but ya might pay a little more fir it than the seagate
I stake my name behind Seagate. That being said, currently I have a WD 250Gb SATA that has been running for almost a year now without a problem. It did come from a batch of 20 I purchased at the time, and to date 8 have gone back to be swopped out. Admittidly the bulk are being used in fairly high usage enviroments where is mine is just in my personal machine.
I am buying a new drive, around 250gig, and was wondering if I should go for a SATA or PATA drive. The drive I am looking at is a Seagate 250gig, available in both flavours. My board also has a SATA connector, so this isnt a problem?
I would go SATA, not just from all the technical points but also from the point that buying it means you are showing support for it over PATA. This means manufacturers and suppliers will be more likely to focus on SATA than PATA and hopefully we will move away from PATA quicker.
noxibox
11-10-2005, 08:54 AM
sometimes they throw in a couple of duds in the box that they send to RSA.
That's just silly nonsense. Anytime you mass produce something as intricate as a hard drive there are going to be some that go bad.
Make sure you can swap the drive's back[with the supplier], and make sure you're mirroring.
You can swap any drive that is under warranty as long as there is no external damage or signs of tampering. Seagate drives have a 5 year warranty.
noxibox
11-10-2005, 09:00 AM
Hi guys
I am buying a new drive, around 250gig, and was wondering if I should go for a SATA or PATA drive. The drive I am looking at is a Seagate 250gig, available in both flavours. My board also has a SATA connector, so this isnt a problem?
Any help appreciated
You probably won't see any performance difference. You can only connect one SATA drive per connector. If you have a parallel interface as well you can always add more drives later since the serial and parallell will co-exist.
SATA's cable is a good thing and a bad thing - it is thin and so doesn't get in the way like the old ribbon cables, but the downside is that the connector is poor and can come loose at the drop of a hat.
Internally SATA drives are generally exactly the same as PATA.
If you can you might as well get a SATA drive with Native Command Queuing.
DFantom
11-10-2005, 09:53 AM
the connector is poor and can come loose at the drop of a hat.
Odd I've used SATA for over a year and not had this issue and my box gets lugged around and bumped quite a bit
DragonLogos
11-10-2005, 07:41 PM
One thing I must point out, while a Seagate drive might have a Five year warranty to the Dealer, the Dealer or retail outlet might not pass this benefit onto the customer
Check with who you are purchasing from WHAT IS THE LENGTH OF YOUR WARRANTY - Do not assume that it will be five years
One of the reasons dealers shorten the term of warranties to customers is the cost of transporting the drive back to the supplier (you can guess some of the others)
Another thing to watch out for is FULL WARRANTY and Limited Warranty. Under Limited warranty you might for example find that you are covered for the first year, but in the second and third years you would have to pay in X amount. Again check what you are buying before you buy it. Let the Buyer Beware!!!
DFantom
12-10-2005, 08:22 AM
One thing I must point out, while a Seagate drive might have a Five year warranty to the Dealer, the Dealer or retail outlet might not pass this benefit onto the customer
The Seagate 5 year warrenty is from manufacter date, not from purchase date. Just be careful with that
thisgeek
12-10-2005, 08:31 AM
SATA's cable is a good thing and a bad thing - it is thin and so doesn't get in the way like the old ribbon cables, but the downside is that the connector is poor and can come loose at the drop of a hat.
My new Gigabyte K8N-SLI board has "SATA II" connectors - it's basically the same thing, except the cables have little metal clips that lock on to the socket, so the cable doesn't come loose anymore. The cables lock quite nicely onto a standard SATA socket.
It's backwards compatible with normal SATA sockets.
If you took a look at that 4 card SLI thread, the board photo has those sockets - they're yellow.
Make sure you defrag often, My drives are defragged 3 times a week.
My SCSI 9 and SCSI 18 drives that are 7 years old are still running perfectly.
ZeroIndex
18-10-2005, 10:26 AM
haven't bothered reading the rest of this page, just the first question, go SATA, it's faster although they are prone to data corruption (haven't had that problem though). go for seagate, they're more reliable, way quieter, and generally cheaper
photonman
18-10-2005, 01:06 PM
dont be lazy zero read the rest
Decotey
19-10-2005, 11:45 PM
Ive never defragged a hddrive
With my luck, if i do, my hard drive will crash on me
photonman
20-10-2005, 12:58 PM
OK! - give it a go! - see wat happens - u might like it.
ZeroIndex
21-10-2005, 03:21 AM
dont be lazy zero read the rest
I'm in New Zealand... got too much else to do than read 2 other pages of replies
ZeroIndex
21-10-2005, 03:22 AM
Ive never defragged a hddrive
With my luck, if i do, my hard drive will crash on me
Get hold of O&O Defrag Professional... great program that handles defraging, unlike stupid stupid windows defrag...
thisgeek
21-10-2005, 07:29 AM
haven't bothered reading the rest of this page, just the first question, go SATA, it's faster although they are prone to data corruption (haven't had that problem though).
Huh? Since when?
PATA drives have just as much chance of data corruption as a SATA drive.
photonman
21-10-2005, 08:16 AM
I'm in New Zealand... got too much else to do than read 2 other pages of replies
but u have time to post a million msg's all the time:p
nah just pulling your leg bru:eek:
so hows things there in "Bruce" and "Sheila" Land?
ZeroIndex
24-10-2005, 10:30 AM
but u have time to post a million msg's all the time:p
nah just pulling your leg bru:eek:
so hows things there in "Bruce" and "Sheila" Land?
"Bruce" and "Sheila" Land? ??? i think you're refering to the goddamn australians... lol
what i've been doing with all my messages (the interesting ones i actually do read the replies...mostly), firefox tabbing, aka load a bunch of topics, read/reply, next
UtterNutter
24-10-2005, 11:55 AM
-if u can go for western digital drives! - they are the best, but ya might pay a little more fir it than the seagate.
This is the biggest joke I have ever read in my entire life.
Western Digital drives are the biggest pile of steaming horse manure on the entire planet.
Let me give you a quick summary:
Bought HDD1, a 250GB WD. Failed after 2 months. Replaced. Replacement failed after 1 year. Replaced.
Bought HDD2, another 250GB WD. Failed after 1 day. Replaced.
Bought 2 WD drives, yet am on my 5th in less than 2 years.
My 3 Maxtors (in the same PCs) are still the originals, one is 5 years old.
I also have a 15 year old Seagate 106MB (meg, not gig) that still works like a charm. Has been running everyday for the last 15 years. (it gets switched off at night, and not used on weekends)
EDIT: oh ya, just remembered too:
Mate1: bought 120GB WD drive, failed after 2 months. Replaced.
Mate2: bought 200GB WD drive, failed after 6 months. Replaced.
eye_suc
24-10-2005, 12:59 PM
its all the luck of the draw...
ive had maxtors that last for YEARS! but also had maxtors that die within months.
same with WD. sometimes they perform well.
I am new to seagates but so far no problems. i am running 2 seagates and 1 is already 12 months old. seems stable with no issues to date.
no manufacturer could make an existance if ALL their drives are screwed. what is most likely the case is that the reseller somehow gets it right to screw up a whole bunch of drives (by manhandling, or storing them next to EMP devices used for testing nuclear blast effects) and then the consumer gives those manufacturers a bad rep for the rest of his life. all manufacturers have given clients bad experiences.
at the moment i prefer drives with long warantees.
photonman
24-10-2005, 01:35 PM
its all the luck of the draw...
ive had maxtors that last for YEARS! but also had maxtors that die within months.
same with WD. sometimes they perform well.
I am new to seagates but so far no problems. i am running 2 seagates and 1 is already 12 months old. seems stable with no issues to date.
no manufacturer could make an existance if ALL their drives are screwed. what is most likely the case is that the reseller somehow gets it right to screw up a whole bunch of drives (by manhandling, or storing them next to EMP devices used for testing nuclear blast effects) and then the consumer gives those manufacturers a bad rep for the rest of his life. all manufacturers have given clients bad experiences.
at the moment i prefer drives with long warantees.
Thank YOU
No-one can say which is the best HDD to usr otr which is most stable!!
flip i just buy try's for price nowadays! - f&^k manufacturers!!! - if i can get a drive for R200 cheaper and its the same size - i take it!
UtterNutter
24-10-2005, 01:57 PM
Yeah, I guess that the reseller I use must have been unknowingly stock-piling a large quantity of dodgy WD drives. Don't worry though, I've reduced that stock by 5! :D
photonman
24-10-2005, 03:49 PM
probably!:o