IDE / SATA - Whats the difference

thegills

Guys,
Whats the difference between the 2 types. Will they both work on the same PC?
Thanks
thegills

galwaydude18

Sata has a higher transfer rate than ide! Yes both will work in the same pc as long as your pc has SATA support! If it's not built onto you mobtherboard you can but a pci card that will give you SATA capabilities! You would also need SATA hard drives, cd drives etc.

tba

The connectors for each are evry different so they are easily told apart.

On the left is the IDE while the SATA in on the right.

Confusion can arise as an older version called ATA looked similar to the IDE type.

The controller card galwaydude18 mentioned looks like this


It plugs into the PCI ports in on your motherboard (the white ones near the back) the two black connections at the top are the SATA whatchamagoogles.

Most modern boards have controllers for both IDE and SATA and both can be used at the same time. However if instaling windows remember that SATA drives are not recognised at the boot without special drivers, to load these you need to have the drivers and press F6 during the early part of the install.

galwaydude18

you can also buy adaptors to convert IDE drives so that SATA cable will work on them! also ata cables have only 40 wires as opposed to 80 (I think) in the ide cables!

tba

those rocket things?

Haven't tried them myself are they any good? I will probaly have to grab one for my larger IDE drive when I get a new board. Does it still keep IDE transfer speeds?

galwaydude18

not sure do thet keep IDE transfer speeds or not or if they are any good! Havent had any experience with them just know that they are available!

tba

yeah they seem a bit dodge. I would feel more comfortable using a PCI->IDE If push came to shove.

looks delicate

galwaydude18

I no for a fact there are better ones out there than that example! I have seen them just can remember where!

osmethod

Whats the difference between the 2 types. Will they both work on the same PC?

Yes they will both work on the same PC providing the motherboard has the interfaces for them. If not a controller card can be plugged in and both work together. You could also have a SCSI controller in there.

There are several different brands of mass storage devices standards:

ATA/ATAPI

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ATA-1: (aka IDE, PIO Modes 1 and 2)
ATA-2: (aka EIDE, PIO Modes 3 and 4)
ATA-3:
ATAPI: (aka EIDE CD-ROM and EIDE Tape)
ATA/ATAPI-4: (Ultra DMA 33 i.e. 33 MB/S Transfer Rates)
ATA/ATAPI-5: (Ultra DMA 66 i.e. 66 MB/S Transfer Rates)
ATA/ATAPI-6: (Ultra DMA 100, i.e. 100 MB/S Transfer Rates aka PATA-Parallel ATA)
ATA/ATAPI-7: (Ultra DMA 133 i.e. 133 MB/S Transfer Rates)

All the above use a 16-bit wide parallel data bus, 80 pin connector, a pair of 40 pins.

SATA aka Serial ATA changes the ATA data transfer medium from parallel (all the above) to a serial medium of transfer.
A 7-pin connector is used. 150MB/S Transfer Rates.
It is now a part of the ATA/ATAPI-7 standard?

Convertors exist to run SATA devices on ATA interfaces and vice versa... e.g. http://www.addonics.com/products/io/adsaide.asp

SCSI
----
SCSI-1: 25 pin connector, 8-bit bus, 4MB/S Transfer Rates
SCSI-2: 50-pin connector, 8-bit bus, 8MB/S Transfer Rates
Wide SCSI: 68 pinconnector, 16-bit bus
Fast SCSI: 8-bit bus, 10 MB/S Transfer Rates
Fast Wide SCSI: 16-bit bus, 20 MB/S Transfer Rates
Ultra SCSI: 8-bit bus, 20 MB/S Transfer Rates
SCSI-3: 16-bit bus, 40 MB/S Transfer Rates (aka Ultra Wide SCSI)
Ultra2 SCSI: 8-bit bus, 40 MB/S Transfer Rates
Wide Ultra2 SCSI: 16-bit bus, 80 MB/S Transfer Rates

USB
---
USB 1.0, 1.5MB/S Transfer Rates
USB 1.1, 12MB/S Transfer Rates
USB 2.0, 480MB/S Transfer Rates

Firewire/1394

---

100MB/S, 200MB/s and 400 MB/S Transfer Rates
Serial Data Transfer, Uses 4 or 6 pin connectors


osmethod

rsynnott

SATA and PATA (conventional IDE) are both varieties of IDE. For the moment there's little practical difference, and won't be for some time. Software support for SATA is somewhat lacking.

Dr_MalPractice

i've been using both SATA & IDE (varied sizes) drives on an asus a7n8x deluxe mobo with no problems, but haven't noticed much, if any real difference in data transfer speeds.

Drives

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ide
western digital 40 gig, 7,200rpm 2 mb cache
western digital 80 gig, 7,200rpm 2 mb cache (2 of)
targa (lidl) branded western digital 250 gig, 7,200rpm 8mb cache

sata
maxtor 80 gig, 7,200rpm, 2mb cache
maxtor 200gig, 7,200rpm, 8mb cache

bigger, better, faster, more. the only hard and fast rule for upgrading

BigEejit

Sata has got a large boost in speed with command queueing .... this is where commands to the hard disk are shuffled to provide fastest performance ... its early days yet but will become a lot more mainstream soon.. for a description have a look here
As the article says, you need NCQ support on the mobo controller and on the disk...

Dempsey

Ya once NCQ gets developed more, you'll see more noricable performance increases. NCQ, 16Mb Cache or raptors is the notible things about SATA.