IDE Ribbon Cable help

[Buffalo]

Thanks for the info
the only price I can find at the mo is £34.61 for this card, not as cheap.
looks good, can run 4 drives on it, but the data rates only 133mb/s

would I be better using the SATA Port card with data rates @ 1.5Gb/s
and the Serial ATA card comes ready with the cable as well.

I'm sure this is the one to go for, well hope!

[tesco]

Thanks for the info
the only price I can find at the mo is £34.61 for this card, not as cheap.
looks good, can run 4 drives on it, but the data rates only 133mb/s

would I be better using the SATA Port card with data rates @ 1.5Gb/s
and the Serial ATA card comes ready with the cable as well.

I'm sure this is the one to go for, well hope!

I would go for that card and a sata drive.
Then you can use the drive if you build/upgrade your computer later on.

Make sure you've got enough connectors for power in your computer, and for a sata drive you will need a molex to sata cable.

[Buffalo]

Thanks Rossco, The one thing I did not think about... "power connectors"
just had a look, yes i have two available.
found a molex to sata on ebuyer @ £4.11 each:ITEM:
Seagate ST3250824AS 250GB @ £65.77 each

x2 HDD £131.54/x2 molex to sata £8.22/1x Serial Ata card £12.04
= £151.80 ~ 304.726 CAD

sounds quite good to me, will be a good setup at a good price!

Thank you

EDIT: Sata power converter on ebay, buy it now price £1.99 + £1.00 p&p

[Duffman]

Hey Duff...how's the RAID array working out?

eh good, i get problems if I don't defrag once in a while, but other than that i get 12 day uptimes no prob, sometimes it does that clicking but it doesn't crash it anymore, so its all cool.

[Virtualbody1234]

Thanks for the info
the only price I can find at the mo is £34.61 for this card, not as cheap.
looks good, can run 4 drives on it, but the data rates only 133mb/s

would I be better using the SATA Port card with data rates @ 1.5Gb/s
and the Serial ATA card comes ready with the cable as well.

I'm sure this is the one to go for, well hope!

IDE maximum data rate is 133MB/s
SATA maximum data rate is 150MB/s

But the mechanical limitation of most drives is still less than 100MB/s.

You won't notice any speed difference.

You can still go with SATA if you want. Look for the best price for the card and drive combination.

[peat moss]

Ask a question, get an answer, problem sorted, Nice one!

It's just because you're not French.
We seem to terrify them...

Or the French Canadiens ,who just like to be different ! Ok OK could n't help it !

[lynx]

Try the new WD drives:
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=94403

16MB cache for only 60p extra per drive but save money on the sata power converters - WD drives still accept molex power connectors.

If you are getting 2 drives don't forget that you need a data cable for each drive with sata. The controller card only comes with one cable so you need to buy one for the second drive.
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=58191

[Buffalo]

Thanks Lynx
All I need now is buy one get one free
Thats a good deal, 250GB - 16MB Cache at that price.
love the look of the SATA cables compared to the old IDE, that would make a well tidy PC.
Thanks all for ya help on this one

[Appzalien]

If you have chosen sata drives thats ok, you can always switch them to a sata capable motherboard later but you need to know that a sata pci card is limited by the speed of the pci bus, you will not get 150mb/s speeds until you have a sata motherboard.

[lynx]

If you have chosen sata drives thats ok, you can always switch them to a sata capable motherboard later but you need to know that a sata pci card is limited by the speed of the pci bus, you will not get 150mb/s speeds until you have a sata motherboard.

Standard pci bus throughput is 33MHz x 32 bits width = 1.056Gb/s. While this does not match the 1.5Gb/s (not 150mb/s) of the Sata I interface, it still outstrips the media speed of about 500mb/s for a high end drive. Without multichannel RAID the limiting factor is still the media transfer speed and will continue to be for some time.