Will someone explain this to me.

[Kyle Forrester]

Ok i've tried reading around and what not but I just dont get it.

I dont even know if im asking this question right.

You can plug your hard drives in with either IDE cables or those other ones...SATA is it? I dunno.

What the hell is the difference?!?!?! I hadnt even heard of this till a few weeks ago.

Will any HDD plug in this way? Or only certain ones?

Sorry if this is a shit question but just point me in the right direction.

Thanks alot. I wanna learrrrn.

 

[FarFarAway]

Well IDE and SATA are different interfaces.

SATA uses a SATA interface and IDE uses IDE.

Take a look at this mobo:



The ones in red are SATA interfaces and the ones in green are IDE interfaces.

The IDE interface can only support up to 133 transfer speed but SATA supports 150 (and over in the future). I think that's right.....but I'm sure someone with more knoweledge will help!!

 

[Dav0s]

SATA is better than IDE because it is faster but atm is not necessary because even IDE hdd dont utilise the full speed of the interface. howevr you can operate RAID on SATA drives. raid is a number of different ways of operating more than one hdd in an "array". check out th guide for mroe information on it.

SATA also had smaller cables so it is a lot neater and in the future will be much much faster.

 

[Kyle Forrester]

Right, im all fine and good with IDE, but never used SATA (though i get the basic differences in terms of data transfer)

Mostly, didnt get how RAID came into it, though now i do so i'll read up on that list.

To answer the last question, without me having to open my pc coz i've just screwed it up for the night lol, do all HDD's have an option for SATA? Or just the newer ones? (And older ones i belive, since SATA was around before IDE but is now making a come back due to IDE's limitations, ya???)

 

[Dav0s]

your hdd is either SATA or IDE. your motherboard can have just IDE or ISE and SATA but not SATA on its own. as for your last question im not quite sure on it being around first. might be a job for google.

 

[Kyle Forrester]

Okay I get it now Thanks for the info!

 

[muffin]

You can RAID IDE drives too can't you?

I have SATA purely for the dinky little cables

 

[Dav0s]

ide raid? not to my knowledge. could be wrong tho.

 

[muffin]

ide raid? not to my knowledge. could be wrong tho.

I'm 99% sure you can RAID IDE.

I'm also wrong 99% of the time...

 

[Kyle Forrester]

Do you actualy notice a performance difference with it???

 

[muffin]

Do you actualy notice a performance difference with it???

With what? SATA? or RAID?

 

[FarFarAway]

I think he means SATA. Yes you will notice the difference if the drive is you OS drive. My friends just upgraded and he noticed a hell of a difference. Dunno about RAID though!

 

[Joe]

yes you can RAID IDE , but most systems bont have a RAID controller;

Also with SATA there is no Master or slave drives you just pick one for boot ..

 

[NickS]

You can raid IDE.