There`s quite a few ways to look at this.
SATA writers are observed equally as cheap as their ATA counterparts, so there`s no issue there.
In the next year or 2, the IDE connections on new mobos may disappear altogether - but then a new good standard writer costs less than £20.. so it isn`t that much of an issue. Similarly IDE->SATA thingies have been seen from £7.99 to £17.99.. meh.
U`r dilema of is the cable 80 or 40 core ribbon`ed - well if u have a HardDrive IDE cable that`s less than a handfull of years old, it`ll be an 80, u can use the same one. The size of individual strands of the ribbon (not an exact science): the 40 pol looks similar thickness to a molex, and the 80 pol strands will look like thinner fan wires - as a comparison. Both use a 40 pin connector - so don`t be confused when the top of the connector says 40
The 80 just uses 2 wires per pin connection.
Most importantly for u prehaps would be if u`r mobo is capable of recognizing a SATA optical unit from boot. What u don`t want is a situation where u have a windows problem and need to boot to cd or something, but u`r mobo won`t let u. The guyz could advise u better if u`r mobo make will allow this.
Is there a speed/performance difference ? Well it`s hard to say exactly. To be able to do this u would need 3 identical units; one with SATA, and the other 2 using a 80 pol and a 40 pol. It`s commented that, apart from bursts, that opticals don`t operate over something like ATA66 no matter what way they`re connected coz of the present limitations of how they`re constructed.
It`s also fair to comment that if u rely on internal audio output to a soundcard, not all SATA have them. In fact all the ones I`ve seen so far haven`t, but that`s not saying a whole lot.
Do-not connect an optical unit on the same IDE ribbon as a harddrive - an IDE channel syncs to the lowest speed unit. So effectively u`r harddrive will drop from ATA133 to ATA100/66 or lower.
So really u need to look at what u`r using in u`r pc at the moment. If u`ve already got both IDE channels covered with alteast 1 harddrive, including an optical in the mix will upset the speed. Have u got a free SATA port - or are u looking to add another SATA harddrive to u`r system in the future (prehaps) and only have 1 slot left ?
To be fair, u use u`r harddrives infinitely more than u`r writer, so bare the effects of u`r writer on them. U kinda use a writer and.. well most of the time it sits there.
