I know that this is a stupid question for you out there but i must have an answer.
I want to know the difference between an ide hard disk and a serial ata.I don't want the technical stuff just the big difference because i want to by one.
If you have any suggestions on which hard disk (ide/serial ata-brand) it would be nice too.
End of course i would like to know if i prefer a serial ata will i have problem with my other one which is a 80Gb Western Digital (IDE)????


Thanx!!!

Serial ATA hard drives are potentially faster than any ide hard drives. Of course you need a motherboard that will support them or an add-on sata controller. On my Abit board which has 2 built-in sata raid controllers, I have no problem using both a sata raid 0 array, an ide drive on an ide controller and a second ide drive on a sata controller using a parallel to serial adapter. If you're thinking of try to put the sata and ide drive into a raid array, that's not a good idea.

SATA can theoretically be faster than PATA. PATA supports up to 133MB/sec, SATA can do 150MB/s. Probably, you won't be surprised if I tell you that there doesn't exist and HD that can do 133MB/s or more. This bandwith is useful when using RAID arrays and such, but not for standard situations...

Most SATA discs on the market are in fact PATA disc with a built-in PATA -> SATA convertor. In some cases, the conversion slows down the drive (negative performance gain).
The only SATA drives that are really fast are the WD Raptor drives. Those are pretty expensive drives btw (about $125 for 36GB, $275 for 74GB). Their speed isn't due to the SATA interface though... it's the 10000rpm and the partial SCSI implementation that does it...

True. I lusted after the Raptors when setting up my raid system, but in the end the struggle between price and capacity was won by capacity and I went with the WD caviars. They are faster than the single wd ide drive I was using, but not as fast as the raptors. When the 10K drives come down in price, I'll upgrade. Again.

Nice rig you have there rmunde .. the raptors will just be the cherry on top

Thanks Hemispasm . One of these days == when they come down in price.

The real perceived speed with the Raptors is the low access times. Seek and latency times are very low, and even lower on the latest generation of 72GB and 36GB Raptors.
Raid-0 Raptors will max out at anywhere from 80-120MB/sec on large file transfers, which is way better than anything else out there, but you will rarely notice that except on benchmarks.
The hot ticket right now is the chipset implemented SATA, such as the KT-600, which are pushing the 120-130 MB/sec transfer rates. But these differences are really only seen in benchmarks, not every-day use.

That said, I wouldn't give up my Raptor RAID for anything. You really notice it when multitasking. They can burn 2 different DVD's at 8x from the same partition and still do other tasks at the same time. Sweet..

On a budget the Samsung Spinpoint 1614N is a nice value. 160GB,PATA133, 7200RPM, 8MB Cache and all for $118 at newegg.com

Personally, I'd go with Western Digital or Seagate before Samsung. They're all pretty much the same price and I've seen WDs and Seas for less with the same specs.

[offtopic]
True... those are optimized by applying some SCSI technologies in IDE discs...
[/offtopic]

Damaniac18: did you make up your mind already? I'm quite anxious to know

I think i will go with te WD but i am not so sure about sata.If you want my final answer i will say that i will try wd sata and see how it works!!!

If you have a sata controller on-board, there is no reason not to go with that type since the price is about the same. If you don't, you will have the added cost of buying an add-on sata controller.

I have a sata controller on board.The only thought that crossed my mind is that if there will be any problem with my IDE disk!!!

I have the Abit IC7 Max 3 board which has 2 sata controllers and 2 ide controllers. I have a raid0 array on the Intel sata controller, an ide hard drive on the Silicon Image sata controller with an Abit Serillel sata->pata adapter and a second ide hard drive as a slave on and ide channel.

So you are saying that i should buy the (WD sata 120GB) and there will be no problem with the other Hard disk .(ide) ??

PS:The next post which i think will be a simple yes! will find me with a new sata disk.Sory if i was boring....

I can only speak for the motherboard I have: the Abit IC7 Max 3.