Would IDE -> SATA be worth it?

I was looking at this

IDE -> SATA Adapter

because i find it that SATA drives are cheaper and faster, but is it really worth it? My motherboard does NOT support SATA direct so thats why i would need this adapter.

The plan was to buy this hard drive

Western Digital 200 GB SATA 7,200 RPM Drive

And to ghost my old IDE Drive to the SATA.

I currently run 2 80 gb drives.. and if i were to buy this i would have 2 partitions, one 137 gb (since limits are there) and have the rest a 2nd partition so i can place all my media on there.

So is it really worth it? Plus my Power Supply is SATA power ready.. cause it has those connectors (2) for it.

 

Hi,
The adapter runs to your IDE controller, so if there is some sort of problem with the controller (even drivers) it will be exactly the same.

The new drive will be SATAII 3.0Gb/s, but the adapter and controller will have a maximum data transfer rate of 150Mb/s. I looked for a SATAII PCI card, but they are around $90 plus:
http://www.cooldrives.com/rasaii3g4plo.html

The original SATA (1.0) did not perform much better than IDE. There has been an improvement with SATAII.

From what I would expect, there would not be a marked improvement, unless the old drives were 5400rpm and not 7200rpm.

The only reason I would do what you plan is if the new drive could be transferred to a new computer in the future.

In theory two HDDs should run better than 1 if the system is set out so that one HDD can be doing one task and the other another task, rather than 1 HDD searching for data all over the disks.

Why might your two HDDs not be performing well? Starting from basics, the configuration. Most of us here suggest putting HDD drives on the primary IDE and optical drives on the secondary IDE, the cable should be 80 lead (if the motherboard is pre 2000/1 it might not support 80 lead cables). The jumper configurations are master/slave or both drives set to Cable Select, but motherboard manufacturers recommend master/slave. The configuration of the drives on the secondary IDE can also have an effect and should be checked.
How are the drives partitioned? If you install a second HDD and partition it as an extended partition of the first HDD, that may work fine unless the configuration is changed. I always partition each drive with their own logical partition/s.
Drivers, in Device Manager, under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers, your controller should be listed with the manufacturers name and the model number of the controller, if not it will be running standard drivers and you will need to install the motherboard/chipset drivers (and since it is an older motherboard, find updated drivers at the manufacturer's website, do not use "Update Drivers -> find updated drivers on the internet" because the wrong ones can be installed).

Sandra in my signature has drive benchmarks. You can also run the tests at www.pcpitstop.com, although they usually say that the drive is fragmented, but may give you some guide.

Have you done all the drive clean ups? Do you need to run Error Checking (chkdsk)? Are any "file checking" programs slowing down the system? Do you have enough RAM not to be running off page file?

I would say, in theory, you won't see any appreciable improvement.

In that search I found one or two alternatives:
http://www.cooldrives.com/paandseatabi.html

http://www.cooldrives.com/esii11in1exp.html
also gives you an external e-SATA adapter.
[Edit: For Windows to run from a PCI card it will require that the boot sequence be changed to the new controller and when installing Windows, to use the F6 key to install drivers from a floppy disk.]

Matt

 

well thats one of the reasons i would like to upgrade to SATA, so when i build a new computer i won't have to buy a new hard drive.

The system i have in mind only has 1 IDE channel but 4 SATA channels.. but it might be until the end of summer until i can buy that stuff...

I have read what you have both said.. but still am confused..

are you saying if i wanted to upgrade i should use a PCI version or keep the 2 drives or what?

 

I agree as well. I'm not sure having SATA over IDE is going to get you anything.

I just bought a SATA 3.0Gb drive (Hitachi 250GB T7K500) and HDTach actually reportedly its average read speed as being 4Mb/sec slower than the basically identical drive I have in IDE flavor. When I posted about this (not here) I was told that the drive mechanics haven't changed, it's simply the interface has changed. And it seems that the benefits of that interface are basically "theoretical ".

The reason I bought my first SATA drive just recently is because I'm moving from USB 2.0 external backups to SATA II external backups. It was an odyssey trying to figure out which parts will work with others because there are two different connector types: "L" and "I ". What a PITA!

I could have done my backups to an internal IDE slave drive but I want to have my backup drive external in case of PC catastrophe.

So, in essence, I'm saying that SATA isn't all that.

 

Well thanks.. i guess i will wait until i get a newer board and cpu.

The only bad thing is i will have the buy a floppy drive in order for the drivers to be install for SATA on XP..... (I will not used VISTA... i hated it)

 

The last install I did, using a recent SP2 disk, did not need SATA drivers loaded from a floppy disk. It looks like Microsoft have included some SATA controller drivers for running setup of their recent releases.

If you have a recent XP disk try running without a floppy drive first (but you will need to get one if it says there was no HDD detected )

Matt