opinions on SATA drives

b-man1 · Post by **b-man1** » Sun Aug 31, 2003 11:57 am

i haven't used SATA yet...just looking for real world perspectives from anyone that is.

1. reliability? (too new to tell yet?)
2. cost vs. performance?

one of my pc's has built-in SATA onboard...not sure if i should try or just stick with IDE for now.

thanks!

DocSilly · Post by **DocSilly** » Sun Aug 31, 2003 12:33 pm

1. reliability = same as their PATA counterparts, only exception is the WD 10K IDE drive, that comes only as SATA.

2. performance = see above

There is no real difference between the SATA and PATA drives. The main advantage of SATA vs PATA is the new interface, the thin cables and the ease of use (no more master/slave jumpers).

b-man1 · Post by **b-man1** » Sun Aug 31, 2003 4:27 pm

no performance difference? i thought they were comparable to scsi...at least for access times. i've seen 10k rpm sata for sale as well.

i like the looks of the cables...makes for a cleaner case w/ better airflow.

thoughts?

DocSilly · Post by **DocSilly** » Sun Aug 31, 2003 4:45 pm

That is the WD 10K IDE drive I mentioned, the WD360GD, a 36GB 10k rpm SATA drive. It was reviewed by Storagereview right here. But that drive has no PATA counterpart to compare to

So you COULD say that this SATA unit is faster than the other PATA drives ... but a HDD that offers PATA and SATA will deliver the same performance. The differences are minimal and only show in benchmarks.

You can compare the WD2500JB (250 GB ATA-100) vs the WD2500JD (250 GB SATA) Head-to-Head at Storagereview right here (I hope the URL works). The full WD2500JD review will be up shortly at that page.