SATA vs. PATA

[meangene714]

Hello all,
I'm researching parts for my first build, and narrowed down my hard drive to an 80GB 7200 RPM 8MB cache from Western Digital. Newegg.com has both the SATA and PATA versions for the same price.

I read the SATA sticky, and from what I understand, SATA is not faster than PATA. So, are there any advantage to SATA? Disadvantages?

[Kareeser]

In general, SATA and PATA are built on similar technology.

However, SATA cables are smaller and narrower, allowing much better airflow throughout the case. PATA (or IDE) cables are thick greyish cables that block air from flowing efficiently throughout the chassis.

Also, while most motherboards have one or two IDE slots, each with a master/slave configuration, each SATA drive has its own connection to the motherboard, allowing for simultaneous transfer from one disk drive to another, with little to no configuration.

It's also newer.

I believe I've covered the basics, at any rate...

[glc]

If your motherboard supports SATA, get a SATA drive. Leave the IDE channels open for your optical drives.

[MakeYourslf2012]

Kareeser pretty much covered it.

While you won't get increased speed with SATA drive, they are easier to handle. Plus with a Serial drive, you don't have to fool around with jumpers and the IDE Master/Slave cables - the BIOS automatically detects the drive and you configure it how you like.

[meangene714]

Great, thanks everybody,

I'll go with the SATA.

Yes, the motherboard I've selected supports both SATA and PATA. I'll post the full list when I have everything selected.

[Cricket]

While you won't get increased speed with SATA driveThat's not exactly true. The 10,000 RPM WD Raptors do perform better than any IDE hard drive and SATA burst transfer rates is currently at 3.0Gb/s where IDE topped out at 1.33Gb/s. In normal use you may not really see a performance difference between IDE and SATA but SATA is theoretically faster than IDE and will perform better in certain situations.

:) Cricket

[maximo_meridio]

I was measuring several SATA and PATA HDD (all of them common options in store, no state_of_the_art drives) and I obtain similar results, near 40 Mb/s. in secuential reading.

What about teorethical speed ? ( 1,5Gb/s SATA, 3Gb/s SATAII, 133Mb/s ATA133) It refeers at how much data can the specific bus handle. It powers Raid configurations (several disks at once). In common circunstances (1 or 2 disks) there is no amazing speed gains among SATA/PATA.

But SATAII has smarter use of disk writing orders, then it can be 3 - 5% "faster" than SATAI