New to SATA

Hello!

I have this mobo:
http://usa.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=12&l3=45&model=407&modelmenu=1

In the manual, it syays: 2x Serial ATA with RAID 0, 1 function

Now, I have been using IDE all my life, and I am just getting into SATA. I know it uses a differnt power connector, so I will get that. I went to newegg to see what SATA drives they have. They have Serial ATA150 drives and SATA 3.0Gb/s. I am going to guess that the 3.0gb one, I don't have, and only newer mobos have that. I ask that can if I use both Serial ATA150 drives and SATA 3.0Gb/s(the 3.0gb drive will just downgrade the speed and work?). If there is any more info I need to know about SATA, that would help me out! Also if you know any HDDs that have SATA that would work w/ my mobo would also help me out. 

Thanks! 

SATA2 is just a faster version of SATA. Both are faster than IDE. Any mobo capable of sata1 can use a sata1 or sata2 drive, just at slower speed.  Parallel-ATA is what most refer to as IDE.  Also, a large number of SATA drives have molex connecters, but also come with a power adapter and data cable.
Another note, if your windows/linux/etc install disk supports installing on SATA, reinstall on the SATA drive. (faster read/write speeds mean better performance) AND MAKE SURE TO ALWAYS ENABLE S.M.A.R.T. !!

>>2
Wrong way to put it, SATA II (2, 3.0 Gb/s, whatever) just has twice the bandwidth of SATA I (300). While SATA I has more bandwidth than IDE (150)..

All of this is a moot point however, because bandwidths of current drives barely break the 60s. Both SATAs are compatible to one another..

Get the drive that is has the largest GB/$$$ ratio
I would try for Western Digital's RE drives, which are tested more caefully in their 5-year warranties (the others are only 1-year but paying an extra 15$ for an extended 2-years only ammounting to a 3-year warranty)

Also, I prefer Segate's Barracuda 10 series family..

>>3
is there a way to connect my old 300 GB HD to this new system?

>>4

OP here

ummm, is it a IDE HDD or a SATA HDD?

thanks for the replys so far! I guess I'll just get a 3.0gb SATA HDD and it will downgrade in speed but still work right?

There's really not a big speed advantage for SATA over ATA133, because the disks can only read/write so fast, no matter how much bandwidth you give them. SATA only gives you a big advantage if you use 10K+ drives.

>>5
irs ide

-- HERE ARE THE DEFINITIVES --

A SATA drive is still essentially the same as any other hard drive, except that the cabling is much more sensible and convenient to work with.

Most mobos will have IDE ports on them for use either with older hard drives and/or CD/DVD drives.  Naturally, you may use just about any configuration that pleases you.  Do take careful note of the boot sequence settings in your BIOS.

Many times, some utility programs may have trouble seeing SATA drives but there are usually workarounds.  (Note: Partition Commander has no trouble at all with SATA drives and is fairly inexpensive)

Most all hardd rives today are either 5600 or 7200 rpm.  This is the only true limit to your disk's speed, no matter what the cabling.  Although virtually hard drives have 2MB-8MB buffers built-in to catch any data being saved as it is sent to the disks (also good for quick access to repeated reads of small file segments), the generally rule of thumb is that the platter speed of a 7200 drive will average between 20MB and 40MB per second... but it will max out at around 60MB/sec on occasion.  5200 drives are slower than this.  There are a few 10000 rpm models out there, but they are generally no larger than 100GB at present and are horribly expensive... it's just not worth it and I would sooner recommend a triple-drive RAID 5 array system which would perform much better anyhow and still be cheaper.

RAID is another topic altogether.  Originally conceived as a means of protecting data storage by means of redundancy schemes, it is the basis for both SCSI and SATA technology.  IN THEORY, there are ways with the right hardware and software to do this same thing with old IDE drives but nobody really does this.  In any case, SATA drives generally require "RAID drivers" in order to function, and you may need a boot floppy (or boot CD) with the RAID drivers on it when installing many operating systems (eg: all versions of Windows).  Once installed, the RAID drivers will become part of the permanent drive base for the operating system and it will boot normally from there on.

There did that help?

>>8


OP here, yes thanks a lot.
So I am guessing SATA is no differnt than IDE, only in terms of how it connects?

My mobo had RAID drivers in the cd, so I should be set in using sata hdds? Or do i need to reinstall windows?

>>9
Basically, that's it!

As for reinstalling Windows, if your already running it then you good to go.  If your moving the contents of an old drive (IDE) to a new one (SATA), then first install the needed drivers first while your still using the old drive, THEN copy the partition to the new drive.  I'm not actually sure, but I think Win98 may not actually require the drivers, but 2K/XP most definately do.

Of course, if you are doing a virgin installation, keep the drivers handy in case you need them.

You can do RAID 0 or RAID 1 on a dual-channel IDE controller. This is only useful if you don't have or rarely use any other devces on the IDE channel aside from your two hard disks. Linux does it well, Windows XP fails at it but does support it in a bass-ackwards way, and if you have a Mac you care more about the new Coldplay album than a RAID array anyway

SCSI > Faggotry (ATA, SATA).