SATA vs USB 2.0

[oslama]

I went HD crazy (damn you Hot Deala) and bought 2 ide drives (160gb seagate and 200gb maxtor). I just realized that i won't have any room in my new rig. The motherboard only has one ide port, (1 Hd, 1 DVD/rw). I do have 2 SATA connectors.

My question is can i use a ide to sata adapter or get an usb enclosure? both would cost about the same 20~30 dolars, but which would give me the least hassle and best performance.

 

[LED]

Best performance would come from the ide to sata adapter, however an exteranal case would allow portability...

 

[mdahc]

Originally posted by: LED
Best performance would come from the ide to sata adapter, however an exteranal case would allow portability...

I've heard other people say this as well. My question is if SATA tops out @ 150mb/s and IDE tops out @ 100 or 133mb/s, then wouldn't Firewire or USB 2.0 (>= 400mb/s) yield better performance?

 

[LED]

mdahc
...1st off they are all theoretical bandwith calcs in which non of the protocols reach their limits, 2nd off IEEE 1394 S400 (Firewire) is 49.15 MB/sec while is USB 2.0 60.00 MB/sec and shares it's interface.

 

[phisrow]

Your performance will be hobbled by the slowest link in your system. Usually, that'll be the physical platters and heads in the drive. For a few moments, mostly when cache is being written too or read from, the bottleneck will be the IDE portion of the path, either to the Motherboard, or to the adapter widget you chose. Thus, it doesn't much matter which one you use, as you won't get more than IDE speed anyway. You'd be best off with SATA adapters as their CPU load will be lower than Firewire, and a lot lower than USB.

 

[lapierrem]

But you guys all fail to see that they are all limited by the speed of the hard drive in the enclosure - which if it is a standard enclosure, is just an ATA/133 (or lower) drive converted to use USB/Firewire/SATA (except in expensive specialty drives) and is therefore limited to the speed of the 133 drive. But CPU utilization, as mentioned, is different with each connection method. If you get an IDE to SATA converter, you will not realize the transfer speed benefits of SATA (other than if you are being CPU limited on IDE), because it's still operating at 133 and not 150.

 

[LED]

lapierrem...when you compare the same HD in SATA vs PATA form there is no difference in transfer speeds whether it's running via IDE, SATA, or even Firewire800 as HD's cannot reach their theoratical speeds so the IDE adapter won't give the HD a performance hit

 

[mdahc]

Given the aforementioned factors, then wouldn't Firewire be the best way to go since that would give him portability and lower CPU utilization than USB 2.0?

 

[LED]

Originally posted by: mdahc
Given the aforementioned factors, then wouldn't Firewire be the best way to go since that would give him portability and lower CPU utilization than USB 2.0?

Yes BTA how many OP have Firewire capabilities on their Puter must be considered so 1 External case with both capabilities would be the choice IMO

 

[akira34]

Both of my systems at home have both USB2 and FireWire... Any mobo worth a damn will support FireWire 400 or 800 right off the bat...

 

[LED]

Originally posted by: akira34
Both of my systems at home have both USB2 and FireWire... Any mobo worth a damn will support FireWire 400 or 800 right off the bat...

In a perfect up to date Puter world maybe but over 1/2 my clients don't with or without Lapps

 

[akira34]

Originally posted by: LED

Originally posted by: akira34
Both of my systems at home have both USB2 and FireWire... Any mobo worth a damn will support FireWire 400 or 800 right off the bat...

In a perfect up to date Puter world maybe but over 1/2 my clients don't with or without Lapps

Then get the dual, or tripple, interface drive... That way, anyone with USB2 is good, people with FW400 and FW800 will also be good. Of course, you'll see better data transfers with both FireWire's over USB...

 

[LED]

Originally posted by: LED

Originally posted by: mdahc
Given the aforementioned factors, then wouldn't Firewire be the best way to go since that would give him portability and lower CPU utilization than USB 2.0?

Yes BTA how many OP have Firewire capabilities on their Puter must be considered so 1 External case with both capabilities would be the choice IMO

Exactly what I posted right above yours

 

[imported_marcosv]

Originally posted by: oslama
I went HD crazy (damn you Hot Deala) and bought 2 ide drives (160gb seagate and 200gb maxtor). I just realized that i won't have any room in my new rig. The motherboard only has one ide port, (1 Hd, 1 DVD/rw). I do have 2 SATA connectors.

My question is can i use a ide to sata adapter or get an usb enclosure? both would cost about the same 20~30 dolars, but which would give me the least hassle and best performance.

How many hard drives you want online at the same time? That'll shed some light on what option is right for you.

Personally, my main rig has eight internal hard drives (damn you Fry's Electronics!) and I got four USB 2.0 external hard drive enclosures.

If you don't need all the drives online at same time:
- If you got a free 5" drive bay, consider a drive caddy system where you slide in 3" drives in caddies. I got over 15 of these caddies. Easiest way to get a drive in/out of your system and internal drives are faster than external ones. You also got less compatibility issues (e.g., you can easily boot off of a caddied drive with most motherboard BIOS).
- Get an external drive enclosure. I prefer USB 2.0 because more systems support USB, but, if you are interfacing with old laptops, chances are those will have USB 1.1 , but, maybe fire wire. Those USB 2.0/Firewire combo enclosures are expensive though.

If you do need more drives internally:
- IDE hard drive deals are still plentiful. You could get one of those IDE Controller cards for your computer which will give you four more IDE hard drives. Probably cheaper than buying four IDE to SATA dapters.
- You may need to upgrade your power supply to support your hard drive addiction. I'm currently using a really good 510W power supply. Older power supplies (e.g., 3 years ago when PPF supplies weren't common) don't have enough current on the 12V lines for a lot of drives.
- You may need a bigger case.

For maximum utility you probably should go with a USB 2.0 drive enclosure and get a USB 2.0 PCI card should your current rig not have a free USB 2.0 compatible jack handy. That way you can bring your hard drive to other locations (i.e., when that 256 MB thumb flash drive isn't big enough).

 

[airfoil]

Originally posted by: marcosv

Originally posted by: oslama
I went HD crazy (damn you Hot Deala) and bought 2 ide drives (160gb seagate and 200gb maxtor). I just realized that i won't have any room in my new rig. The motherboard only has one ide port, (1 Hd, 1 DVD/rw). I do have 2 SATA connectors.

My question is can i use a ide to sata adapter or get an usb enclosure? both would cost about the same 20~30 dolars, but which would give me the least hassle and best performance.

How many hard drives you want online at the same time? That'll shed some light on what option is right for you.

Personally, my main rig has eight internal hard drives (damn you Fry's Electronics!) and I got four USB 2.0 external hard drive enclosures.

If you don't need all the drives online at same time:
- If you got a free 5" drive bay, consider a drive caddy system where you slide in 3" drives in caddies. I got over 15 of these caddies. Easiest way to get a drive in/out of your system and internal drives are faster than external ones. You also got less compatibility issues (e.g., you can easily boot off of a caddied drive with most motherboard BIOS).
- Get an external drive enclosure. I prefer USB 2.0 because more systems support USB, but, if you are interfacing with old laptops, chances are those will have USB 1.1 , but, maybe fire wire. Those USB 2.0/Firewire combo enclosures are expensive though.

If you do need more drives internally:
- IDE hard drive deals are still plentiful. You could get one of those IDE Controller cards for your computer which will give you four more IDE hard drives. Probably cheaper than buying four IDE to SATA dapters.
- You may need to upgrade your power supply to support your hard drive addiction. I'm currently using a really good 510W power supply. Older power supplies (e.g., 3 years ago when PPF supplies weren't common) don't have enough current on the 12V lines for a lot of drives.
- You may need a bigger case.

For maximum utility you probably should go with a USB 2.0 drive enclosure and get a USB 2.0 PCI card should your current rig not have a free USB 2.0 compatible jack handy. That way you can bring your hard drive to other locations (i.e., when that 256 MB thumb flash drive isn't big enough).

No offence, but could you briefly go over what you have on those hard drives? Damn!!! Fry's must do some pretty good selling, must check them out the next time I'm in Arizona.

 

[lapierrem]

Originally posted by: LED
lapierrem...when you compare the same HD in SATA vs PATA form there is no difference in transfer speeds whether it's running via IDE, SATA, or even Firewire800 as HD's cannot reach their theoratical speeds so the IDE adapter won't give the HD a performance hit

But this is because the current common implementation of SATA is only SATA-150, which I assume to mean 150Mbps, and that isn't much faster than ATA at 133mbps? And like I said if your using an adapter for USB to ATA or Firewire to ATA, or SATA to ATA you're still only getting data from the drive at 133?

 

[LED]

Originally posted by: lapierrem
But this is because the current common implementation of SATA is only SATA-150, which I assume to mean 150Mbps, and that isn't much faster than ATA at 133mbps? And like I said if your using an adapter for USB to ATA or Firewire to ATA, or SATA to ATA you're still only getting data from the drive at 133?

Mbps (megabits per second) is not to be confused with MBps (megabytes per second). Mbps stands for millions of bits per second or megabits per second and is a measure of bandwidth whereas Megabytes per second (MBps) describes a unit of data transfer to and from a computer storage device.
On the SATA data you are given Yes it all looks good theoretically but the fact remains that many of the SATA HD's today have 1 PATA bridge chip already built in it so the conversion is made before any adapter or cabling. Until the SATA is implemented totally by way of the NB chip (ie. Intel,NF4) it will have the PCI limits of 133MBps.
Today there are PATA Drives that outperform SATA's hooked up via their called for protocol and even UDMA66 limits aren't always reached on their platforms.Today SATA cabling is mostly where the benefit is because of it transmission + signal capabilities and to think that SATA 300 will see double increase is only wishfull thinking such as the Firewire 800 speeds will triple when Firewire S3200 (300MBps) comes along.
Proof in the past can be seen when the UDMA speed double the MBps did not so It's not the theoritical speeds but rather the device that is being hooked up to it. Once again the SATA to IDE convertor will not cause a performance hit but I suspect only 1 SATA HD can be driven on an IDE cable due to it's lack of jumpers.

 

[shortylickens]

I think your original question may have been lost in the forum. I would reccommend external. Either USB 2.0 or firewire. The ability to hotswap with other computers is nice. Dont have to mess with the inside of your case either.
Just dont install any essential programs to them. I also have extra hard drives. I use them for game installations and misc file storage. (Smut, warez, and bible passages.)

 

[oslama]

Originally posted by: marcosv

Originally posted by: oslama
I went HD crazy (damn you Hot Deala) and bought 2 ide drives (160gb seagate and 200gb maxtor). I just realized that i won't have any room in my new rig. The motherboard only has one ide port, (1 Hd, 1 DVD/rw). I do have 2 SATA connectors.

My question is can i use a ide to sata adapter or get an usb enclosure? both would cost about the same 20~30 dolars, but which would give me the least hassle and best performance.

How many hard drives you want online at the same time? That'll shed some light on what option is right for you.

Personally, my main rig has eight internal hard drives (damn you Fry's Electronics!) and I got four USB 2.0 external hard drive enclosures.

If you don't need all the drives online at same time:
- If you got a free 5" drive bay, consider a drive caddy system where you slide in 3" drives in caddies. I got over 15 of these caddies. Easiest way to get a drive in/out of your system and internal drives are faster than external ones. You also got less compatibility issues (e.g., you can easily boot off of a caddied drive with most motherboard BIOS).
- Get an external drive enclosure. I prefer USB 2.0 because more systems support USB, but, if you are interfacing with old laptops, chances are those will have USB 1.1 , but, maybe fire wire. Those USB 2.0/Firewire combo enclosures are expensive though.

If you do need more drives internally:
- IDE hard drive deals are still plentiful. You could get one of those IDE Controller cards for your computer which will give you four more IDE hard drives. Probably cheaper than buying four IDE to SATA dapters.
- You may need to upgrade your power supply to support your hard drive addiction. I'm currently using a really good 510W power supply. Older power supplies (e.g., 3 years ago when PPF supplies weren't common) don't have enough current on the 12V lines for a lot of drives.
- You may need a bigger case.

For maximum utility you probably should go with a USB 2.0 drive enclosure and get a USB 2.0 PCI card should your current rig not have a free USB 2.0 compatible jack handy. That way you can bring your hard drive to other locations (i.e., when that 256 MB thumb flash drive isn't big enough).

I am building a Gaming/Multimedia/Video Cap PC. So i will be running games on main drive, backing up VHS on 2nd and using third for smut, warez and EMUlation.

MY NEW RIG:

Intel 3.4 w/ 915PBL MoBo
512 MB DDR2 ( will upgrade to 1/2 gb when $ come down)
ATI x700 256 VIVO (like the 2D) or Leadtek 6600gt VIVO (perf/$ ratio)---haven't chosen yet
Audigy 2 gamers edition
WD 200 GB, Max 200 GB, Seagate 160 GB
NEC 3500 DL DVD/rw
thinking of getting an ANTEC or Cheiftec Tower case w/ $hit load of bays

 

[sparkyclarky]

Originally posted by: mdahc

Originally posted by: LED
Best performance would come from the ide to sata adapter, however an exteranal case would allow portability...

I've heard other people say this as well. My question is if SATA tops out @ 150mb/s and IDE tops out @ 100 or 133mb/s, then wouldn't Firewire or USB 2.0 (>= 400mb/s) yield better performance?

You're mixing up megabits and megabytes.

SATA1 has a top speed of 150 megabytes/second, IDE usually around 100 megabytes/second

Firewire and USB 2 tend to make out around 40-60 megabytes/second
However, theoretical top speed doesn't matter, but as far as interfaces go, the external enclosures simply are not fast enough to let a good IDE drive run at it's full speed. They are great for saving space inside a case and for portability. But, in your case, I'd run the internal SATA ports and use an IDE-SATA adapter.

 

[Mark5000]

Add a Promise ATA100 TX2 PCI card for around $15 in the for sale forums.

 

[Bfavre444]

In IDE-to-SATA enclosures where the internal is an IDE drive and output is SATA, do those enclosures use some kind of chipset like Oxford 911 in the firewire conversion realm, or do those enclosures just use a simple IDE-to-SATA adapter?

Or are they basically the same thing? I'm worried about possible bottlenecks in the IDE-to-SATA process, and also when going from the external SATA into the PCI port. Will PCI limit the incoming SATA signal much?