Cut power cables from PSu i dont use ????

[Snee]

I don't see the big deal with SATA anyways. It offers little to no advantages over PATA in desktop solutions.

'cept for the wee matter of the speed. Eventually standard SATA drives are going to be noticeably faster. They are only slightly faster as it is tho', 'cept for the raptors. All in all it seems to be a bit closer to SCSI.

It is going to replace PATA sooner or later anyway, which means that you get some futureproofing.

And the cables are thinner and smaller compared to round ide cables, which means that airflow improves slightly.

The lack of jumpers also means that they get a little bit easier to mount, which is a good thing for the computer illiterate, tho' messy driver solutions and whatnot have made the installation procedure less than easy for some.

[lynx]

messy driver solutions and whatnot have made the installation procedure less than easy for some.

There needs to be a default driver set which will work for all SATA chips, just like there is for IDE. Full drivers could then be installed later just like chipset drivers do for IDE controllers.

[Supernatural]

Show me real-world, non-server benchmarks that show SATA (or even SCSI) faster than PATA.

SATA won't help Windows or programs load faster. It won't make your games run faster. So what's the point?

[lynx]

Show me real-world, non-server benchmarks that show SATA (or even SCSI) faster than PATA.

SATA won't help Windows or programs load faster. It won't make your games run faster. So what's the point?

PATA speed has had to increase to match faster media<->drive electronics speeds, but the PATA interface (and the much more expensive SCSI interface) are just about at the limit of possible technology. Getting all the signals to arrive at the same time causes delays and raises costs. On the other hand SATA is just getting started, SATA2 (3GHz) controllers are now available, and the simplicity will drive costs down.

Initially Sata drives are simply PATA drives with a serialised interface, but there's no need for that. Data is written to the media serially, so why convert it to parallel just to convert it back to serial. The next generation of drive electronics probably won't bother.

What else is just coming onstream? PCI-Express. And guess what, it uses high speed serialised data transfer. So why bother to convert from serial PCI-Express to parallel in the controller chip and back to serial for the cable - once again it is something that will disappear reducing cost, complexity and bottlenecks.

Parallel interfaces are dead. Wake up and smell the coffee.

[Snee]

I still luv SCSI, but SATA is the future, there's no denying that.

@the PATA fanboy: IDE/PATA has never been as reliable on avererage as SCSI is, and SCSI drives running at 15000 revs have been available for quite some time.

Both SCSI and SATA have obvious technological advantages over PATA (although I've never come into contact with a mobo with an inbuilt SCSI controller), tho' SATA is going to make SCSI obsolete along with PATA one day.

[TheDave]

ive just stuck mine above the dvd drive. i wouldn't bother cutting them cos if you need them in the future its a messy pain in the arse to get them back

[lynx]

I still luv SCSI, but SATA is the future, there's no denying that.

@the PATA fanboy: IDE/PATA has never been as reliable on avererage as SCSI is, and SCSI drives running at 15000 revs have been available for quite some time.

Both SCSI and SATA have obvious technological advantages over PATA (although I've never come into contact with a mobo with an inbuilt SCSI controller), tho' SATA is going to make SCSI obsolete along with PATA one day.

There are plenty of high spec servers with SCSI controllers, and many don't even bother with IDE controllers. I suspect that their days are numbered though, particularly as SATA is going to offer the same full hot swap capability as top level SCSI cabinets, something which has been lacking in cheaper drives until now.

[Supernatural]

SATA reduced costs? That's a completly unfounded statement. And saying serial interfaces are the future is complete BS. Anyone still use the Serial ports on their computers? Heck, most motherboards these days don't even have them.

I don't deny SATA being the future, because it is. But I'm talking about the situation as it stands today. SATA has (as in, currently) no advantages for the average user.

[clocker]

I don't deny SATA being the future, because it is. But I'm talking about the situation as it stands today. SATA has (as in, currently) no advantages for the average user.

Not true.
Seek and read/write times are definitely lower.
But, even discounting that, the cabling is easier to deal with.

Furthermore, if IDE was dropped, valuable space on the motherboard PCB would be freed up and maybe designers could rearrange components better.
A good example would be the southbridge chips on nForce 3/4 boards which are currently crammed too close to the AGP/PCI-E slots for active cooling.

[Snee]

There are plenty of high spec servers with SCSI controllers, and many don't even bother with IDE controllers. I suspect that their days are numbered though, particularly as SATA is going to offer the same full hot swap capability as top level SCSI cabinets, something which has been lacking in cheaper drives until now.

Damn, obviously I've been buying my high-spec servers in the wrong place. nah.

I've never had a mobo with an inbuilt scsi controller, but I've never really had a hi-spec server either, so that kinda' works out.

@sn: the fact that it is the wave of the future makes it a good thing to get today. Then you know your drives are going to fit on your next mobo. And they are slightly faster already, not much tho', except for the 10000 rpm drives, 'cos those are faster any way you look at it.

So there are too very obvious advantages to choosing SATA today, for one thing future-proofing, for another speed, if you buy a raptor.

And the cabling makes for slightly better airflow, like I said, and I think it makes your case neater as well, airflow and order is of course not that important tho'.