Economics of SATA hard drive

On 22 Jun 2006, wrote:

"Warra" wrote in message
...
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 £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!

--------------------------------------------------
Note: Newsgroups changed (due to limit of 3 groups for
cross-posting imposed by AIOE's server).
alt.comp.hardware.overclocking.amd was removed since the topic has
nothing to do with overclocking.
--------------------------------------------------

Hey you! OK, so one group has to go. Fair enough.

Altho the AMD group very often discusses upgrade configurations which
retain old components.


Check if the SATA drive includes an adapter. This lets you connect
the SATA drive to an IDE port (and also use the 4-pin Molex power
plug so you don't need a PSU with SATA power plugs). You would
then run your SATA drive to the IDE port in your old host. When
you get a new host later, you can remove the adapter and connect
the SATA drive to a SATA port on the new motherboard.

I haven't bought a SATA drive for awhile so I don't know if they
come with the adapter. If not, you can get them separately.
However, check the cost since getting a SATA card might be close to
the same price.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16812206001


Sadly the Samsung hard drive I am looking comes with no cables at all
and the UK cost of cables is similar to the cost of a PCI SATA card.

On 22 Jun 2006, Merrill P. L. 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?



Consider getting a PATA drive of whatever size fits your needs.
When its time to move to another motherboard, look for one that
will support the hard drive. If it only has one PATA interface, it
may be possible to use it for both the hard drive and a DVD drive.
Since DVDs typically runs at 66mhz, the hard drive would probably
run at that reduced bandwidth. BUT the good news is that hard
drives rarely transfer data any faster than that except for burst
from cache.

I already have five or six PATA drives I run simultaneously. I use a
PCI PATA extender but I prefer to avoid drives on the PCI PATA card
as I get:

No SMART reporting.
Can't boot from a partition on one of them.
Drive & partition seq numbers are different in BIOS, OS & in utils.
Slower overall booting due to PCI card checks.
etc

I don't really want to have two PCI PATA cards (my old one and a new
one) on a new mobo that supports only one P-IDE port.

On 21 Jun 2006, 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.

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.

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".

:-)

In article , Warra wrote:
Don't want to get Parallel IDE (PATA) because newer mobos will
support only SATA.

I doubt very much that there will be any motherboards that support SATA but
not PATA within the useful working life of any disk drive you buy today,
and I certainly don't think the majority of boards will be SATA only for
quite some time. Even if such boards were to become common you will still
be able to use one with PATA drives via a PCI (or PCIe, or whatever the
future may bring) interface card.

PATA drives are still slightly cheaper than an equivalent SATA drive, and
while SATA connection may be faster than PATA neither will be saturated by
data coming from one of today's disk drives, so speed isn't really an issue
(and if speed were your primary concern I'd tell you to get SCSI).

I really don't think it's worth worrying that a PATA drive you buy today
will disadvantage you in any way.

Cheers,
Daniel.

--
Remove the dross to contact me directly
"Warra" wrote in message
...
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".


http://www.aria.co.uk/ProductInfoComm.asp?ID=7726

Eric
--
Remove the dross to contact me directly

"Rod Speed" wrote in message
Ed Light wrote:
"Horst Franke" nospam@invalid wrote in message ...
In news:K6omg.198$lv.167@fed1read12 Ed Light typed:
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.

Hi Ed, and what has this to do with the OP's inquery?
He asked about SATA!
Horst

You missed part of the thread.

No he didn't. Horst**** is just plain stupid (or plays a very elaborate troll).
Too many people are giving him playtime. He must be so pleased.

Though I had some news server problems and maybe answered a bit off
the appropriate sub-thread. Not sure.

As far as I can tell from looking at the threading without checking the
header you answered to the correct post. Of course it doesn't help if you
don't include some quotes or even an attribution line but apparently Horst****
prefers that because he can always read the previous message, eh Horst****?
Pity he doesn't practice himself what he says other people can/must do.

I had to skip some messages that wouldn't load.

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.

No it doesnt.

Which is completely irrelevant to what he said in the above para where he
was merely rehashing what was said before because of Hort****'s excessive
and compulsive snipping. Next time try and read before you snipe.


Now my post is relevant.

No it isnt, its just plain wrong.

Clueless, as always.
He made his previous post 'relevant' where Horst**** thought it wasn't.
In that post he proved that Merrill P. Troll was wrong in several counts.

On Thu, 22 Jun 2006 04:41:00 +0200, "Horst Franke"
nospam@invalid wrote:

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

Hi Kony, I aggree.
My last PC bought in Sep 2005 has a SATA HD as bootable
device and also IDE connectors for older HDs.
So there's no need for extra adapters!

.... depends on how many drives one wants to use.
Those systems I use more often have more than 1 HDD and 1
optical.



The best alternative is to buy a PATA drive. 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. In other words, your board is among the worst
to use a PCI SATA controller on.

Don't understand. An onboard IDE will make no difference to
an extra PCI SATA card on performance.

Yes it will. PCI is normally a minor bottleneck but in this
case (Via KT266 chipset) the PCI bus is the weakest link by
far.

And newer boards will already have a SATA interface.
I don't see any difference on adapter speeds.
Horst


Forget the theoretical adapter speed and look at the
bottlenecks. One most major is the HDD itself but the PCI
bus on old generation Via board as OP has is a very real
bottleneck... in real uses moreso than just a synthetic
benchmark where the drive subsystem was isolated instead of
competing for bandwidth. On these old Via systems it can be
so bad one can't even play an audio file without stuttering
if they have a typical NIC and PCI IDE card... and I don't
mean the notorious SB Creative Labs cards. PCI latency
adjustment tools can alleviate the problem somewhat, but the
PCI is still far weaker than on nForce, Sis, Intel chipsets
of the same era.

"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.

TIA!

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 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.

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.

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.