Economics of SATA hard drive

On Thu, 22 Jun 2006 11:31:33 +0100, Warra
wrote:

On 22 Jun 2006, Ed wrote:

"Rod Speed" wrote

Yes, but one PATA channel may well not be enough,
most obviously if you want to have two optical drives,
you're stuffed, no where to put the PATA hard drives.

To the rescue!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822998008

Cool.

But after all this discussion, you have forgotten the first 4 words of
my OP:

"Am in the UK".


It's best to avoid such adapters, having an extra card with
attached cable dangling off the HDD circuit board can cause
problems in the long run. HDD boards aren't exactly
well-attached, nor thick. Just plugging or unplugging the
power connector you can often notice them flexing some.

It's well worth spending the $5-10 more for a regular PCI
card... but really there is no need now, just get the PATA
drive as that is the whole point of PATA drives... to be
able to just USE them in a system supporting PATA.

On Wed, 21 Jun 2006 22:11:11 -0500, "Merrill P. L.
Worthington" wrote:




Ya think? Prove it.



no need to prove what is common knowledge.

There is no problem doing it, IDT (independant device
timing) means the HDD will run at full speed unless the
optical was a PIO drive.

On Wed, 21 Jun 2006 23:34:02 -0700, "Ed Light"
wrote:


The OP presently has a pata m/b and doesn't really want a pci sata card. One
alternative suggested was to get a pata drive and later it would still work
on a newer motherboard, then that newer motherboards have only one pata
channel, then that having a hd and dvd on the same channel should drop the
udma speed to the dvd's. Now my post is relevant.

.... except that it won't... drop the UDMA speed to either
the HDD or DVD. They can each run at their own speed.

On Wed, 21 Jun 2006 23:42:18 -0700, "Ed Light"
wrote:


"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...
Ed Light wrote:
My PATA HD and DVD are on the same channel and the HD benches up to
its maximum of 40 Mb/S.

Device manager lists them at UDMA 133 and 33. Win XP Home.

Whether this can happen may depend on the bios.

Nope, not anymore.

How far back? KT133? Pentium 1?


Yes, around 1995 was the end of that era.

On Thu, 22 Jun 2006 19:53:42 +1000, "Rod Speed"
wrote:


My new motherboard has 2 PATA channels. Wasn`t enough for me, so
paid about £10 for a PCI PATA card, giving me another 2 channels,
allowing me 8 PATA drives. Maybe this would be the better way round
for you to go - get a PATA drive now, and buy the PCI card in the
future IF your new M/B doesn`t have enough channels.

Makes more sense to do it the other way, buy a SATA drive
and a SATA PCI card, because that will be used only in the
dinosaur that wont be that fast anyway. No point in crippling
the speed of the hard drives in a new fast system by having
them on a PCI card.



It is amazing that today's mindset makes it a problem to
even buy a drive with an interface that actually SUPPORTS
it's use instead of buying a PCI card. It's so very
backwards.

"Peter van der Goes" wrote in message news:jEymg.142411$k%3.102732@dukeread12
"Rod Speed" wrote in message ...
Warra wrote:

Find a cheaper PCI SATA adaptor on ebay.
Question, as our IT support wants to put a SATA drive in my office PC by
using such an adaptor,
is there a performance penalty involved because the adaptor uses the PCI
bus? I want to point it out if there is before they use that option.

Depends on your PC and what PCI bus it is using.
Further depends on the number of drives you are using and their usage pattern.


TIA!

"kony" wrote in message
On Thu, 22 Jun 2006 16:03:55 +1000, "Rod Speed" wrote:
kony wrote
Warra wrote

Am in the UK. Running an old system which works quite well:
Via 266 mobo with Duron 1800 processor and 768MB of SD-RAM.

Will upgrade the system when I need the extra power. Currently
need to add to my data storage. Don't want to get Parallel IDE
(PATA) because newer mobos will support only SATA.

Newer boards will support at least one PATA channel
because OEMs (and others too) are still using and
preferring PATA optical drives.

Yes, but one PATA channel may well not be enough,
most obviously if you want to have two optical drives,
you're stuffed, no where to put the PATA hard drives.



yes, that's why if/when the time comes after that next
system is purchased, one could buy the PCI IDE card.

Actually, I'd expect by that time there would be PCI Express

PATA cards in the market enough for them to be price-competitive

For such a small market, yeah right.

and choose that over the 32bit/33Mhz PCI alternative.


Plus, the same argument you are making about the need for a
PCI SATA adapter could go the other way- that you buy a PCI
PATA adapter for the next system "IF" it ends up needing one.

Yes, but the newer motherboards tend to be short on card slots too.


Yes, it is a sad irony that with all the great transitions going on, many
people are left with less versatile systems for their real-world uses.
I still look for boards with maximum # of PCI slots, particularly towards
the bottom of the board so they aren't conflicting with good video card
cooling if utilized.



If you don't plan on having more than one optical drive in
your next system and plan on purchasing it within at least
the next couple years, it is most likely it will have PATA.

Going with SATA now does give you more future tho.

?? How far into the future does one need to look? Since
PATA channel(s) on still on new boards and backwards
compatible, it could even make more sense to have the PATA
drive for data recovery purposes, IF one didn't have any
other SATA capable systems yet. IOW, new system goes
down and user only had the old PATA capable one.



And you get the better SATA cabling now too.


Yes but it seems the least relevant issue, I don't recall a
lot of users having any system functionality problems
because of the PATA cable. Certainly SATA is more
esthetically pleasing and very convenient for eSATA
drives... I'm not against SATA at all but at this point in
time either can work equally well and having to buy a card
later is a minor expense, if necessary which it may not be.


Can get a 250GB Samsung hard drive (from Komplett)
for about £60 inc delivery which is a real bargain.

But a PCI SATA adaptor by Sunsway from the same dealer costs
£19. It supports 2 SATA devices. That is definitely not a bargain
as it's one- third of the price of the 250 GB drive! What a swizz!

I don't know what all hardware costs over there, but trying
to equate it based on % of a budget grade drive is a bit
misguided. The card has, as any product does, a certain bit
over overhead in design, manufacture, delivery, marketing,
warranty coverage, etc, etc.

Card can be surprisingly cheap anyway. Clearly
a lot easier to manufacture than a hard drive too.

What viable alternatives do I have?

The best alternative is to buy a PATA drive.

Nope, the best alternative is a cheaper PCI SATA adaptor.

Nope, we don't know that OP would ever need to buy a card at all.

It's entirely conceivable that if a PATA drive were bought today,
next system will have one free PATA position... or at worst,

THEN the PATA card is bought, and possibly then
in PCI Express format which is a further benefit.

They aren't available now, so why would they be available then.
If you hadn't noticed, PCI IDE is being phased out now already.


SATA over PCI is often slower too. Looking beyond the synthetic
benchmarks, most people have nic or sound, etc, on their PCI bus
already.


It will be faster than an SATA, because not only will you
be avoiding use of a PCI SATA card (slower because
it's on the PCI bus instead of southbridge integrated as
your PATA controller onboard, is), but ALSO because
your motherboard's Via chipset is known to have a
somewhat low realized PCI throughput.

It isnt exactly a red hot performer, bet he wont even notice.

It can be expected at least 15% slower in many uses, that's
significant enough to perceive when the HDD is already the
bottleneck for many uses.


In other words, your board is among the
worst to use a PCI SATA controller on.

Oh bull****.

Have you ever actually TRIED a PCI card on that chipset?
I have... benched it too. Don't recall the scores but did
recall the very significant difference in use of a PCI
controller on that and prior, next gen Via chipsets.
Google for the info if you don't believe,

If you Google,
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...ATA+benchmarks

look at the very first hit, it happens to be KT266A...
http://www.tecchannel.de/ueberblick/...70/index3.html

... and this is even BEFORE one tries to use the PCI bus for
other concurrent things like audio or whatever.

75MB/s is still sufficient for single drive use.
For more drives too when not reading sequentially.


In computing most things are typical, but occasionally some things stand
out as very good or bad. Via chipsets PCI performance in that era were
very bad.

"kony" wrote in message
On Wed, 21 Jun 2006 22:11:11 -0500, "Merrill P. L. Worthington" wrote:




Ya think? Prove it.



no need to prove what is common knowledge.

There is no problem doing it, IDT (independant device timing) means
the HDD will run at full speed

unless the optical was a PIO drive.

Even then.
Whether it will reach it's top STR (MB per one second) is a different matter though

"kony" wrote in message
On Wed, 21 Jun 2006 23:34:02 -0700, "Ed Light" wrote:


The OP presently has a pata m/b and doesn't really want a pci sata card. One
alternative suggested was to get a pata drive and later it would still work
on a newer motherboard, then that newer motherboards have only one pata
channel, then that having a hd and dvd on the same channel should drop the
udma speed to the dvd's. Now my post is relevant.

... except that it won't... drop the UDMA speed to either
the HDD or DVD. They can each run at their own speed.

Yes, that is what he proved by posting his bench results, without saying
it with so many words.

Warra wrote
Rod wrote
Warra wrote

Am in the UK. Running an old system which works quite well: Via
266 mobo with Duron 1800 processor and 768MB of SD-RAM.

Will upgrade the system when I need the extra power. Currently
need to add to my data storage. Don't want to get Parallel IDE
(PATA) because newer mobos will support only SATA.

Can get a 250GB Samsung hard drive (from Komplett)
for about œ60 inc delivery which is a real bargain.

But a PCI SATA adaptor by Sunsway from the same dealer costs œ19.
It supports 2 SATA devices. That is definitely not a bargain as
it's one- third of the price of the 250 GB drive! What a swizz!

What viable alternatives do I have?

Find a cheaper PCI SATA adaptor on ebay.

ebay? No thank you. I find it goes like this on ebay:

£1 for the PCI SATA card.
£5 postage.
£5 to £10 for the time to complete a transaction and swap emails
and check credentials and confirm goods against description.
£10 to chase spotty-faced ****** selling the item about delays.
£10 for angst, grief and general wot-****ing-mess-this-is.

You clearly havent actually got a clue about using ebay.

There are plenty of commercial retail operations
that sell stuff on ebay and it isnt hard to work out
which ones those are using the feedback rating.

And if you cant find that card in a bricks and mortar operation
in that soggy little island of yours for a decent price,
http://froogle.google.co.uk/froogle?...le&sco ring=p
you could get real radical and order it from somewhere outside
your country from a bricks and mortar operation that has decent
prices. Postage doesnt cost much on something like that.

And even then you find the card prolly does not work (whatever
price is asked). "I'll give you your £1 back then mate and pay
the postage - you can't say fairer than that." **** off sonny,
after all the hassle I just want a working card.

Have you the remotest concept of how silly you look in the eyes
of those of us that have bought plenty of stuff like that off ebay
and havent got anything like the result you got ?