Is my HD SATA - and more questions

[tomster2300]

Hey,

I have a Western Digital 40 gig hard drive with an 8 mb cache - I don't believe it's SATA because I'm thinking that I would have to have installed extra drivers and such originally. I didn't, so I guess it's not that. (My motherboard isn't SATA compatible, is it?)

The thing is I'm looking for a new larger one and am wondering if I could mix a SATA 8 mb cache HD with my current one. If so, which one should i make my main one? Thanks.

[bigandy]

No, the A7N8X-X doesn't have native SATA. You could buy an SATA card, and be able to use SATA drives. But I don't know if you could boot from that controller card.

[foolishone]

If you did go the controller card way, the only advantage would be better air flow. The PCI card only transfers at I think 133 and the SATA transfers at 150, so the PCI card would "down clock" the SATA, and any transfer speed, to 133, bottleneck on the controller card.

^fo

[tomster2300]

So no SATA in my future, eh? Oh well, it'll just be cheaper to go with the alternative, is that IDE? I dont know to be honest, I'll ask in the morning when I go shopping I suppose. There's really no difference between the two, is there? I know I ought to buy it off newegg like I did the previous one, but I'm hoping to stumble upon a rebate at the store - it's my birthday tomorrow and I want to go shopping .

Do you guys think that a dying HD could make a game stutter or lock down? I know it's the wrong spot and all, but I'm just throwing it out since you guys seem to know about HD's. Thanks.

EDIT: Will I have to get a larger psu, and also if my HD is going bad (I'd like to keep it until it completely dies) should I transfer everything onto the larger one and then just use the current 40 gig one for storage? How should that work? Thanks again.

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by tomster2300 So no SATA in my future, eh?

Just so you know, the 150 speed notation refers to burst or peak data transfer rate, not sustained. And hard drives rarely ever transfer data at the full transfer burst rates anyway. So if you really want to get a SATA HDD and controller card, go ahead...there won't be much (if any) performance loss by using a controller card.

Originally Posted by tomster2300 Oh well, it'll just be cheaper to go with the alternative, is that IDE?

Yes, it's referred to as IDE or PATA (Parallel ATA).

Originally Posted by tomster2300 There's really no difference between the two, is there?

Between a ATA133 PATA HDD and a ATA150 SATA HDD? No, hardly any difference at all. When SATA2 HDDs start hitting the market there might be more of a performance gap then since they'll hit 300 burst speeds.

Originally Posted by tomster2300 Do you guys think that a dying HD could make a game stutter or lock down?

It's possible...but the problem could be one of a dozen other possibilities too. Have you defragged your hard drive lately?

Originally Posted by tomster2300 Will I have to get a larger psu,

If you add another hard drive? No...the 350 watt Antec will be able to handle another HDD in your system.

Originally Posted by tomster2300 and also if my HD is going bad (I'd like to keep it until it completely dies)

What makes you think it's going bad? Have you tested it with the manufacturer's diagnostic utility yet?

Originally Posted by tomster2300 should I transfer everything onto the larger one and then just use the current 40 gig one for storage?

You could if you wanted to.

Originally Posted by tomster2300 How should that work?

The hard drive manufacturer will have a utility you can download from their website to copy from one HDD to the new one.

Cricket

[tomster2300]

Thanks for all the help cricket. I think I'm just going to stick with the IDE and forget about SATA - it seems too much hassle for a minimual performance increase.

With the Battlefield thing, I turned everything down to medium, including the terrain and the game ran incredibly smooth. I guess the terrain textures were too much for my system. Oh well. Thanks again.