Does this IDE to SATA converter actually work ?

[-Superman]

I was browsing eBay today looking at some Raptors and I ran across this and was scratching my head and thinking, does this thing actually look like it would be able to do what it says.

So, can it ?

eBay - IDE to SATA (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=64459&item=5124919055&rd=1)

[PCGUY112887]

The NF7-S comes with one... sorta pointless unless you want to run in RAID because it will be the same speed as IDE. The only other nice thing is you get to use the small cables...

[enduro]

I could never get mine to work. I tried everything, and several other people have had that problem too. They're more of a hassle than a benefit in my opinion. But if you want to spend the money, go ahead.

[adelphia83]

I had no problem getting two IDE drives setup in RAID 0 w/ two converters. I've never heard of anyone having problems with these.

These will not increase the speed of your drives however, unless you're looking to add PATA drives to a SATA Raid controller. The small cables are nice, but probably not worth a 9$ converter.

[enduro]

There was a thread on it a while back, and three people can back saying that they couldn't get it to work. I tried everything and I still couldn't get mine to work, but they are only good for space saving anyway, so they really don't make that much of a difference when you have a full tower.

[Dukeman]

I've used them before to attach SATA drives to a non-SATA system for testing purposes and they work OK.

[Hypnos]

I am using one now, just for the smaller cables (less clutter). Not any faster really, but I think it looks much nicer with the smaller cables.

[Aslan]

Don't these converters only work if the chipset in the converter matches the one in the controller? I agree that they're kind of pointless unless you really want to use the slim cable, and I didn't even bother with mine when I used IDE drives.
At least this controller is a "next-gen" device in the sense that it can adapt optical drives to SATA. I remember the first ones, including the Abit Serillel, could not do this.

[adelphia83]

Don't these converters only work if the chipset in the converter matches the one in the controller?

No, that's not the case.

What most people don't realize, is that most SATA hard drives are not native, they have similar converters built into the drives themselves.

Also, the majority of the SATA controllers are simply PATA controllers with a SATA bridge/converter.

[Grimdeath]

I have no problem with my Abit SATA adapter with my maxtor or seagate drives. I use it because I have my primary HD alone as a master on one EIDE controller and two CD drives on the second EIDE controller (master/slave). I put another HD on the SATA controller so that I don't have any slave HD drives.

[Nagorak]

I am using one now, just for the smaller cables (less clutter). Not any faster really, but I think it looks much nicer with the smaller cables.

You can buy a rounded cable for like $6, so I'm not sure getting a coverter is worth it just for smaller cables.

[Aslan]

No, that's not the case.

What most people don't realize, is that most SATA hard drives are not native, they have similar converters built into the drives themselves.

Also, the majority of the SATA controllers are simply PATA controllers with a SATA bridge/converter.

Thanks for the clarification. I read somewhere that the controller and converter needed to be matched and I thought that it didn't really make sense because of the SATA bridge within the hard drive.

[Xtreme Barton]

i thought they worked just fine .. no your not gonna get this crazy speed yoiu never had ...
one thing you may enjoy is it uses less cpu ... depends on what your doing i guess..

if anyone has one laying around that they dont use, i would like to get a pm from you ..maybe work something small out...but of course im looking for one that abit gave with the mobo ...

i used two different brands and they did not like each other in raid 0 setup ...

[FTC]

Hi, my suggestion is : get a PCI SATA controller card. Here in Spain the cheap ones cost around 39 euro. This will also help you having separated devices in separate channels, which is good for performance.

[enduro]

Doesn't the pci card limit your bandwidth gains from SATA though? I'm not sure, that's why I'm asking.

[FTC]

Doesn't the pci card limit your bandwidth gains from SATA though? I'm not sure, that's why I'm asking.

The PCI bus (at 33Mhz/32bit) runs at a max. 133MB/sec, which is higher than any UDMA5 (100MB/sec) or UDMA6 (132MB/sec) IDE drive's interface speed, which is going to be your limit for burst transfers anyhow (with a PCI card or with the converter).

[johan851]

Doesn't the pci card limit your bandwidth gains from SATA though? I'm not sure, that's why I'm asking.
Actually, that's sort of correct. Using a PCI card will limit your bandwidth to 133mb/s, and having multiple drives on the SATA bus will flood your PCI bandwidth under heavy load. Since: These will not increase the speed of your drives you might as well not use one. The advantage to using IDE over a PCI card lies in the fact that your IDE controllers are native to your southbridge. They won't hog up any of the PCI bandwidth and don't suffer from the 133mb/s limitation. Of course, a pair of IDE drives won't top 133mb/s anyway, but still.

[enduro]

^ What he said ;)

[FTC]

They won't hog up any of the PCI bandwidth and don't suffer from the 133mb/s limitation.

This, although true, can be misleading. Just remember that there is NO WAY an IDE ATA drive transfers or bursts at higher than the interface defined spec, which is 133MB/sec for UDMA6 (mostly maxtors) and 100MB/sec for UDMA5 (rest of the industry).

So, the advantage of having the hdd controller directly connected to the southbridge, in this case is only to the fact that then the bandwith does not need to be shared with the rest of PCI-attached peripherals.

You start seeing real burst advantages when you go to SATA150 or some RAID setups, where the controller does effectively have bigger than 133MB/sec data flow to 'throw' into the bus.

[johan851]

Good point FTC. Do drives other than the Raptor even burst that high though? No one but Maxtor even uses the 133mb/s that UDMA6 provides, so I would assume that the performance difference between 100mb/s and 133mb/s is nearly negligible, if not completely.

SATA currently provides 150mb/s, which is only 17mb/s faster than UDMA6, so the burst speed with that isn't significantly higher either. As SATA progresses though it's going to get much more important.

[FTC]

Do drives other than the Raptor even burst that high though?

Well, to begin with, raptors are SATA drives. StorageReview discussion about it even clarifies that it is a bridged solution, which means that it is in fact internally a PATA drive with a SATA-PATA chip on board. ... so the burst speed of a single raptor can not be higher than 100MB/sec either (assuming it is UDMA5), even if the interface is SATA150. The same happens with most other 7200 rpm drives... they equally burst at close to the interface speed.

Regarding maximum sustained transfer rate (not burst speed), raptors are rated at 71.8 MB/sec in the outside tracks of the drive, where most other modern PATA 7200 drives do have an STR of around 60-65 MB/sec in the outer tracks.

Where raptors really shine is in their seek time (4.8msec vs close to 8-9 msec for the rest of the drives) and latency (due to faster spindle at 10Krpm), which give them their special 'snappyness'.

[ghettocomp]

The Converter I purchased actually did not increase speed or show any performance gains. All I got in my case was the ability to add more hard drives for lower cost, which is what i wanted anyway. had lots of large HD's around and nothing to use them in. the adaptor changes IDE to SATA, but as i said, speed was not the factor for me.