SATA

[ic]

I have some questions about SATA and am not sure where to put them!

I want to get a new drive, and I want SATA so as to future proof. My mobo won't support this so I guess I need a cheap card until I get a new mobo. I have XP SP1 - willl I have problems with SATA drivers? Eventually I plan to get a new mobo with support for SATA but will XP fall over and not see the new drive?

Happy New Year everyone!

[rangeral]

You don't say what your system is whether amd or intel as I believe the intel 915 and 925x chipset is the only one that utilizes sata which is expensive and at this point I wouldn't buy sata just to get a card to utilize it if your going to get a mobo that works with sata later.

Better off with a regular hdd as the sata drive isn't that much faster for all the trouble, better off waiting for the mobo your planning on getting than all the hassle.

[ukulele]

I just installed a SATA drive on an AMD with XP SP1 system with a Maxtor/Promise controller card. I had no problems at all and the transfer rate is faster then my other three drives that are all 7200 rpm ata 100 drives. I did however get the card for free or I would not have bothered. There may be a big advantage to SATA if future technology improves the speed even more for SATA but that would have to be drive dependant, so the current line of SATA drives still don't have much advantage speed and performance wise for now, but in defense of SATA, I have to admit that the cabling is a major improvement. It is much easier to connect sata cables and route them especially when switching around drives that are already installed and need jumper changes. They also take up a lot less room in the case and don't restrict the air flow nearly as much as IDE, and don't forget SATA drives are jumperless.

[ic]

I didn't think that the chip had anything to do with it??? I would like to wait but am running out of space fast on my 40gb drive!

[G]

The DiamondMax 10 (Desktop) is the best SATA HDDs around. The link below gives you the different capacities.

http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/Maxtor/menuitem.ba88f6d7cf664718376049b291346068/?channelpath=/en_us/Products/ATA%20Hard%20Drives/Desktop/DiamondMax%2010&productview=Specifications

[ic]

Many thanks for the info, but I still have te same quesion as when I started!

[G]

If you are thinking of getting a cheap controller card for a SATA HDD you may as well put the money towards a new SATA featured motherboard and then think about the SATA HDD. Wait until you have the money for both then buy both. The prices would have come down significantly in a month or two.

The motherboard will have the necessary drivers for the SATA drive to be recognised.

WinXP will have no problems using SATA HDDs.

[gringo]

As ukelele says, using a controller for the S-ATA connections, you will have no problem, especially with XP.

I don't know of any difference with SP1 & SP2 with regards to compatibility, but my system runs 3 S-ATA maxtors, originally installed with SP1, and worked perfect for the first day.

[gringo]

Hi G

I must have some time lag on my PC. I was typing a reply, and you beat me to it by 9 minutes.


Still as G says, you will have no problem with an extra controller,