Sata 101

[dark_15]

^^
Nope. You are absolutely correct.

PS - I added that question to the top post...

 

[t_dub]

Good, cuz I just picked up a Seagate 7200.7 200gig ATA100 on sale

 

[Super Nade]

Here are a few useful links:

A Review

SATA v/s SCSI. Actually a detailed SAT v/s SCSI would be a useful addition.


This is the actual SATA standards committee website. You must include this one and/or point out important recommendations.

Good Luck bro! Looks good.

 

[musawi]

I vote sticky!
Nice!

 

[samuraisam]

Why isn't this a sticky yet?

-Sam

 

[DaMobster]

This was great to read since I am planning on buying my first SATA drive (74 Raptor)... It cleared up all the questions I was wondering about with the windows XP installation...

 

[samuraisam]

Ker-BUMP!

-Sam

 

[donny_paycheck]

Sorry guys, I've been out of town for the holidays. I would've stuck this sooner if I'd have seen it. Excellent work, dark_15.

 

[dark_15]

Woo... my first sticky!!! Yay!

 

[nymph]

Q7. What about PATA to SATA Adaptors? What are they, and are they a smart choice for my system?

A7. These small converters that use a controller chip to convert parallel signals (from the PATA hard drive) to a serial signal. In fact, many of the first SATA drives were no more than PATA drives with a built-in SATA converter!

Advantages:

1. Use of a thinner cable
   [*]No need to upgrade a driver or mess with the OS
   

Disadvantages:

1. The converters only allow for roughly about half the SATA I spec of 150 MB/s available for the drive.

Does this mean that I would be better off using an IDE ATA100 drive with the IDE cable rather than using a PATA to SATA adapter as far as faster MB/s throughput goes?

nYmph

 

[Jibjo]

Very informative. A lot of SATA noobs, myself included, want to know what to do if they don't have a floppy drive when doing a fresh Win XP install? Is it true that the newest HDD technology absolutely relies on the primitive legacy tech of the floppy? Does the system builder have to dig up a spare FDD, open the case, and attach it to the mobo just to get Win XP installed? Thanks!

 

[dark_15]

Does this mean that I would be better off using an IDE ATA100 drive with the IDE cable rather than using a PATA to SATA adapter as far as faster MB/s throughput goes?

nYmph

IMO (I will probably get corrected by someone later), yes. It's just simpler to do that. If you're worried about airflow and stuff, buy a round cable or make your own (if you are careful enough )

Very informative. A lot of SATA noobs, myself included, want to know what to do if they don't have a floppy drive when doing a fresh Win XP install? Is it true that the newest HDD technology absolutely relies on the primitive legacy tech of the floppy? Does the system builder have to dig up a spare FDD, open the case, and attach it to the mobo just to get Win XP installed? Thanks!

Thanks for the compliment. And yes, you will have to use a floppy... except if you are the resourceful system builder... take a look (useful for silicon 3112 image controllers):

http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8892&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

And another good resource is nLite... take a lookie here:

http://nuhi.msfn.org/nlite.html

If you have any issues... feel free to post them here!

 

[doer]

Nice guide!! I got convinced about SATA and bought a 74Gb Raptor. Installing it went eventually okay.

I didn't spot anywhere in the guide:
- fixdisk usability on SATA drives? I couldn't partition my drive with it. Any1 know is it just my system or is it generally so u can forget fixdisk?

I downloaded one utility I got a link to download from somewhere in oc.forums, but I couldn't partition the SATA drive. I had to buy Partition Magic in order to be able to partition my Raptor. (Well it's Asus A8VX mobo with Sata (Promise raid) on mobo) Anyway guys, partitioning SATA drive doesn't go so easy as an IDE drive... maybe you would want to mention something about it in this guide too??

Not that Partition Magic would have done it either in Win2k, cause it doesn't handle Raid-stuff good. So I needed to create with that bought PM a set of disks with which I could finally partition that SATA drive. I guess it proves it right the best way is to revert to floppies when doing something like system move from IDE to SATA. (like mentioned in this guide!)

Anyway using Ghost to backup Win2kSP4 from IDE and moving it to SATA seems to work fine too. If any1 has succeeded to partition a SATA drive with any other programms than Partition Magic, please let me know.

 

[Airbornederekc]

one of the advantages of sata vs pata is not only the transfer rates increase at the peak but the sustained rate of a sata drive is higher than a pata drive. even the 133 models. sata is a great upgrade. id rather buy a sata drive and a controler and use it that way than use a pata drive setup ever again

 

[topslop1]

Running into a problem here. Trying to install a 300 gig Maxtor SATA with Windows from scratch. I have it running and my bios identifies it but when I look for manufaturer's drivers for it I don't find any. I'm using a DFI UT250gb and I haven't found any SATA drivers on the website. I have been trying to install windows on it at only 137gig but it puts me back to the first screen after saying NTLDR not found.

Can I just use a generic SATA driver from somewhere?

Thanks to anyone who helps.

 

[Jibjo]

Thank you for the linky to nlite and those instructions. People should know also that Seagate makes it really easy to install Windows onto a fresh SATA Barracuda drive in a new build: Before you install WinXP you boot (do the BIOS switch to boot from CD) with the Seagate INSTALL CD which lets you (a)format, (b)partition, and (c) get ready to install OS. After this utility, there is no need to use a floppy, as WinXP fully installs without a pause. At least it worked for my little Shuttle.

 

[twinturbo454]

one of my friends is running a sata drive on his 3.06 pentium and he said that he was getting a lot of errors on the hard drive when he overclocked his proc.

is this a common problem? if it is i wont worry about getting one for my new linux dual boot.

 

[peter p]

How do you install a sata and a pata hard drive together. The bios only see's my sata and not the pata. I have to set the bios sata setting to enhanced mode to see the pata but windows won't boot from the sata.
In combined mode it will boot from the sata but not see my pata.

 

[Ol'Dusty]

This thread is verry helpfull. I have a question however. I'm in the process of a new build and I'm new to this whole SATA Raid thing. My MB is a Soltek 865 pro 775. It has two SATA sockets for SATA with raid and two for SATA without raid. So if I install two hard drives in the SATA raid slots, can I use one of the SATA without raid slots for my portable Hard Drive. I plan to use this system for gamming, vid editing, and the pullable hard drive rack will be used to store DVDs on hard drives instead of DVD disks. So can I use SATA with raid alon with SATA without raid?

 

[dark_15]

Yes you can. The SATA controller will recognize the two drives in the RAID slots and allow to RAID them, while letting the drive rack be used on the non raided slot.