Are SATA drives worth it or should i just stick with IDE?

Im getting 2x200gb with 8mb cache's (maxtor i believe) from my friend, and im wondering if its worth it to get SATA ones instead, and sell these or something? is SATA much faster than IDE? Is it worth it overall? thanx

yes, SATA would be a wise choice.

The SATA drive would not be any faster than a standard PATA drive assuming the controllers are just as good. The only advantage would be the smaller cables which will help keep the inside of the case cleaned up and help airflow a bit. You will most likely see no performance increase.

Yes, in fact, many SATA drives have a PATA controller and then an on-board PATA to SATA convertor. There would be a decrease in performance on these drives. Check out some reviews on drives you're thinking about buying. Storage Review is a good place for this.

EDIT:Link Fixed, thanks kulki.

hey Andy,
your link is broken.

Well I suggest you scrap the space unless you really need and and get 2 36gb Raptors. Put them in SATA raid. =). That will give you a huge performance increase with SATA

From what, I've read, the performance difference is insignificant.

If you were buying them new, it would make sense to get SATA because it's only a few dollars more expensive. It's definately easier to deal with SATA cables that IDE cables.

You won't be able to get much for the drives, so I wouldn't sell them unless you can't use the space or you want Raptors.

If you want to use SATA because your motherboard has SATA RAID or you have no room for IDE devices, get a couple PATA to SATA adapters.

If you're using Linux, IDE's easier to deal with, although the 2.6 kernels do support SATA.

yeah it has a sata connecter on the mobo (its a P4C800-E), but whatever. My friend said that the drive came with both cables, IDE and SATA, does that make any sense? what do yoy think he meant by that?

I have a similar problem. I am currently using a WD 250 JB drive & the 39MB per second is pretty slow.

If I were to go with a SATA Raptor drive, would I get a huge performance increase?