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Sata offers no performance boost?

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dgk

Member
Joined
Feb 2, 2001
Location
Delray Beach FL
I'm about to get disks for a Raid-0 setup on the A7N8X-DX (on board). Having read most of the threads, it seems that SATA offers no real advantage over PATA at this time on this chipset. So, since I see no decent sales on SATA drives but PATA drives seem to be rebate-cheap, I guess it makes sense to just get two PATA drives and converters?

Currently WD120 Sata is $108, Hitachi is $116. Supposedly Hitachi is better at the moment but only has a one year warranty compared to the WD and Maxtor 3 year. Odd.

Adapters are around $20 though. Plus, they are another possible failure point. On Raid-0 you want to limit that.

One more thing. Given the limits of PCI (on another thread), are two Raptors (36g) on Raid-0 going to be much faster than two 7200 drives? Or does the PCI bus become the limiting factor?
 
I am in the same boat you are my friend. I have the same mb and want to run a raid 0 array. I can either use a pci card or an sata setup. Since I have one ide I will just get the converter for 20.00 and the same hd as sata for 85.00 at new egg. Not exactly the best setup but should be just fine (thanks Top Hat). I wonder, are there any mb produced yet that have the sata chip incorperated with the chipset rather than going through the pci slot? If not, sata is just spinning it wheels.
 
Splinter said:
I am in the same boat you are my friend. I have the same mb and want to run a raid 0 array. I can either use a pci card or an sata setup. Since I have one ide I will just get the converter for 20.00 and the same hd as sata for 85.00 at new egg. Not exactly the best setup but should be just fine (thanks Top Hat). I wonder, are there any mb produced yet that have the sata chip incorperated with the chipset rather than going through the pci slot? If not, sata is just spinning it wheels.
ide raid0 = sata raid0 only on amd nf2 mobos,correct.
excluding raptors,as its the sata controller is usually on the pci bus limiting bandwith.
intel is the only one offering raid0 function on the SB atm.
 
deathstar13 said:

ide raid0 = sata raid0 only on amd nf2 mobos,correct.
excluding raptors,as its the sata controller is usually on the pci bus limiting bandwith.
intel is the only one offering raid0 function on the SB atm.
I might be wrong but I believe the things that are limiting the transfer are the hard drives themselves (their mechanical parts) and not the speed of the pci bus...
 
I read in another thread that it doesn't pay to use more than two raptors in a raid-0 because the bandwidth becomes the limiting factor. I think I have that right. So that bit about the raptors was just the thought that two raptors may be hitting the limit.

I would think two raptors are still going to be faster than two plain old 7200s. But it might not be as much as you would think if the transfer is hitting the PCI bus limit.

Splinter, I wouldn't go and get a card just to be able to use the PATA drives. Well, PC Fair this Saturday. Let's see what they're offering. Though I don't think the SATA drives will be any cheaper than Newegg.
 
Speed*: I hear yeh. The cables are nice. I buy em just because they are the new technology, what more do you need?
 
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