[Flip-Mode]

Why aren't there more SATA optical drives? I just think IDE cables are bulky and hard to work with and it would be great to have only SATA cables.

[Tyreal]

Yea? I always hear that they are coming out but they never come!

[custom90gt]

Plextor makes them
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827249006
but they are pricey

*on edit* to answer the origional question, its probably because most manufactures think why make 2 when you already have one that is going to fit in all computers.

[Mr.Guvernment]

Cost

it cost more to make SATA then IDE likely, revision of manufacturing plants

and when there is absolutly NO gain in performance, which means the company is going to spend more money to make the same product, just for a neat cable?

and as said, then they ave to make 2 versions - SATA and IDE, cause ALOT of people still dont have SATA in their computers. - just go buy an IDE to SATA adapter.

[Flip-Mode]

Originally Posted by Mr.Guvernment

Cost

it cost more to make SATA then IDE likely, revision of manufacturing plants

and when there is absolutely NO gain in performance, which means the company is going to spend more money to make the same product, just for a neat cable?

and as said, then they ave to make 2 versions - SATA and IDE, cause ALOT of people still dont have SATA in their computers. - just go buy an IDE to SATA adapter.

Yeah I figured that that was the problem but I wasn't willing to commit.

[neonblingbling]

Originally Posted by Mr.Guvernment

Cost

it cost more to make SATA then IDE likely, revision of manufacturing plants

and when there is absolutly NO gain in performance, which means the company is going to spend more money to make the same product, just for a neat cable?

and as said, then they ave to make 2 versions - SATA and IDE, cause ALOT of people still dont have SATA in their computers. - just go buy an IDE to SATA adapter.

I've noticed many SATA hard drives are cheaper than IDE... Are hard drives and optical drives' constructions that much different?

A heads up: I was reading many newegg reviews, and people were complaining that some adaptors would cause their drives to not burn properly.

[Flip-Mode]

Originally Posted by neonblingbling

A heads up: I was reading many newegg reviews, and people were complaining that some adaptors would cause their drives to not burn properly.

Excellent, thanks.

First SATA drives ware IDE drives with a built in converter, after a while they switched to "native" SATA drives. Planning a SATA optical drive from scratch will cost them ALOT in R&D and making converted drives will make them place an expensive converter on each drive.

[Snugglebear]

Originally Posted by Flip-Mode

Excellent, thanks.

First SATA drives ware IDE drives with a built in converter, after a while they switched to "native" SATA drives. Planning a SATA optical drive from scratch will cost them ALOT in R&D and making converted drives will make them place an expensive converter on each drive.

The R&D to make a SATA drive is minimal - the bus protocols are backwards compatible and it's not like optical drives went far past ATA-2/ATAPI. This is mainly an issue of not wanting to retool manufacturing for a niche product. When you start seeing Dell use only boards with SATA on them, you'll start seeing bigger production runs of SATA opticals and lower prices. Until then the manufacturers aren't going to want the extra few cents of production costs (especially when the actual manufacturer - not the branded entity - is probably has a margin of just a few pennies per unit).

If you want a bad dream, recall how long USB took to really catch on (and did we ever really dispose of PS/2, RS232s, or parallel ports?). Also consider that a good deal of optical drives end up in non-PC consumer electronics such as stand-alone DVD players, recorders, etc. Those don't have SATA connectors yet and probably won't for another 5 years (KISS & cost).

[JCLW]

Since the upcoming intel chipsets have no PATA ports (only six SATA), I think we'll see a lot more of them soon (as companies like Dell start asking for them).

[Snugglebear]

All it takes is one PCIe line to hang a PATA controller off of. You could also integrate a SATA->PATA converter on the board itself off one of the 6 SATA ports. The point is that there will be inevitable slippage back towards PATA regardless of Intel's desires; they've made it far too easy to add peripherals onto boards.

[JCLW]

Very true. But all that adds cost and complexity, so the big guys will probably still want native SATA optical drives.