Normal HDD vs SATA HDD

[Kazekage Gaara]

Hi there,

One of my friends is buying a new PC. His config is:

P4 2.8 HT
865 GBF mobo
256 DDR400 Kingston
etc, etc.

Now what we have heard is SATA HDDs are faster than the normal ones.

Is this true? Is it better to have a SATA HDD rather than a normal one. Are there any Pros and Cons in buying a SATA HDD ?

What do you guys have to say.

Any help in this regards will be greatly appreciated.

Thanx in Advance.

[Vivi]

i have no clue.. is it anythong like RAID?

[Norgus]

SATA is a fair bit faster and all SATA drives on a computer act as a master drive (beter bandwidth, and not being shared).
The downpoint is they cost a little more (not too much though) and that you have to use a driver disk when installing windows.
Also I beileve you can get IRQ conflicts.

IDE drives are cheap and simple, nothing special needed to run them but they are slower.

[polobunny]

It worth the money. As norgus said, they're a bit more expensive but you can't get good IDE drives that runs under 5.2ms wich is middle speed of SATA drives. IDE runs at about 9ms.

If you want pure performance, get SCSI. They go fast, and obviously, cost alot.

Edit->By 5.2ms, i'm talking about seek time.
Edit2-> Corrected speed error for IDE. It's 9ms, not 8.

[Kazekage Gaara]

Originally posted by Norgus
Also I beileve you can get IRQ conflicts.

What do you mean by "IRQ conflicts". What are those. Is it something major. The cost factor is not that important.

[Norgus]

IRQ is the hardware interupt request so that a device can get CPU time (to work). I have been told that the SATA drives may take the same address as the IDE ones in your computer.
My friend couldnt install untill he removed his SATA and installed to IDE then put the SATA drive back in.

I myself am gonna get a new pc and a SATA HDD (and keep my old IDE also). So I suppose I should know a bit more once Ive done that.

I advise you go for SATA though. (the cables are nice and thin too, unlike nasty IDE ribbon cables)

[polobunny]

Yeah, but set properly they work like a charm.

[Mishotaki]

just make sure your motherboard can take SATA cables... since my friend baught his new comp.... all in pieces... for me to put all together.. and then see thos cables i never saw(the SATA ones)
and after checking for about 30 mins to find what the heck what that thing! i simply saw that his motheboard couldn't take it.. so it's useless to have SATA hard drives if you can't connect them

i remember too that i formatted the wrong hard drive that time to install windows.... you know.. i formatted his backup drive... the one where he kept all his stuff on...... i think he's still angry about that

[Kazekage Gaara]

Originally posted by Mishotaki
just make sure your motherboard can take SATA cables... since my friend baught his new comp.... all in pieces... for me to put all together.. and then see thos cables i never saw(the SATA ones)
and after checking for about 30 mins to find what the heck what that thing! i simply saw that his motheboard couldn't take it.. so it's useless to have SATA hard drives if you can't connect them

i remember too that i formatted the wrong hard drive that time to install windows.... you know.. i formatted his backup drive... the one where he kept all his stuff on...... i think he's still angry about that

LOL he surely would have gone mad when you formatted his backup hdd...

I already knew not all mobos support a SATA HDD thats why I mentioned in my initial post that the mobo would be 865 GBF, which I also own but I found out about SATA HDD at the end moment when I got my PC assembled

Anyways, thanx for all your replies guys. I really appreciate it.

Bye for now.