[Shelnutt2]

Hey guys,

I'm going to be building a new PC with the release of Conroe. On *most* new Intel mobo can I still use my old ATA IDE harddrives or do I need to sell everything and get SATA (II) drives? I know SATA drives with perform so much better, but is it possible to sue 2 ide hdds and 1 DVDRW drive or are mobos coming with only 1 ide connector now?

Thanks

[Captain Helghas]

Originally Posted by Shelnutt2

Hey guys,

I'm going to be building a new PC with the release of Conroe. On *most* new Intel mobo can I still use my old ATA IDE harddrives or do I need to sell everything and get SATA (II) drives? I know SATA drives with perform so much better, but is it possible to sue 2 ide hdds and 1 DVDRW drive or are mobos coming with only 1 ide connector now?

Thanks

Yes you can, just have to get an IDE controller PCI card, then run the HDDs off that.

[Patched]

Another option besides a PCI IDE controller cards are sata to ide converters boards. You plug the converter into the IDE HD and then a sata cable from MB to converter. Most first generation sata HDs were IDE HDs with sata converter chips.

Just a warning tho that the converter boards might not work with some MBs/sata controllers.

[Shelnutt2]

Just curious now, what is a recommend SATA II drive? I would like to compare its price to that of a add-in ide card. Specifically, if I sell both my HDs now how much more would it be for a decent hdd? I'm looking at new egg, and there are a lot of choices. I'm looking for at least 160 gig storage. What drives do you recommend?

[boris_37]

i say go anything. People will come on here with their personal preferences, but really it's just which drive is the best deal. 250-300gb is your best gb:$ range(300gb being on sale).

So just pick and choose, unless you are choosing something that is obviously poor quality, it really will not matter.

[Mattman]

I'm curious as to how you think that SATA 2 drives perform "so much better". Right now the limitation is more physical (spindle speed, head cycling) than a function of the IDE/SATA bus. I prefer SATA more because of the ease of cable routing and the fact that there tend to be more RAID options available on today's mobos than with IDE.

If you happen to have IDE drives that you are happy with, I certainly wouldn't dump them based on the bus alone - unless you the mobo you REALLY, REALLY want only has 1 IDE channel (in that case try finding another mobo).

[Shelnutt2]

Originally Posted by Mattman

I'm curious as to how you think that SATA 2 drives perform "so much better". Right now the limitation is more physical (spindle speed, head cycling) than a function of the IDE/SATA bus. I prefer SATA more because of the ease of cable routing and the fact that there tend to be more RAID options available on today's mobos than with IDE.

If you happen to have IDE drives that you are happy with, I certainly wouldn't dump them based on the bus alone - unless you the mobo you REALLY, REALLY want only has 1 IDE channel (in that case try finding another mobo).

I wasn't sure I thought all SATA drives performance were better. I mean noticeable better. Maybe I'm wrong. I've never used anything but IDE, so I thought I'd ask.

[Mattman]

There's more available bandwidth with SATA, but today the IDE channels aren't saturated yet. SATAII has features which are supposed to be better for servers/multiuser environments but most don't have a noticeable benefit to a home user.

[wingman99]

Originally Posted by Shelnutt2

I wasn't sure I thought all SATA drives performance were better. I mean noticeable better. Maybe I'm wrong. I've never used anything but IDE, so I thought I'd ask.

If you have a ATA 133 there is no difference
You can achieve better burst speed with SATA
compared to ATA 100