ok im looking for a new hard drive and my mobo has sata ports sooo im questioning to get a sata hard drive or not
but do i need my psu to be compatible with the sata hard drive or can i get a converter for the power cable?? and is there anything else i should keep in mind???

Go sata.. Most sata drives support both power connections...

My Seagate drive came with the power addaptor.

Most motherboards that have SATA onboard come with SATA power adapters.

Definitely go SATA.

I just switched to RAID SATA from RAID PATA and it is much nicer. The hookups are cleaner and I swear that stuff is loading faster.

Of course, if I had my druthers, I'd wait until SATA2 came out but I didn't have a choice. I had to get drives now.

so now that u gave me that great advice

wut hdd shall i check out and are they around the same prices compared to IDE's???
i preffer price round $150 with at least 80 gigs of space

Crap, dude. I bought a pair of new Samsung 120GB's from NewEgg for $100 each. Now I got a RAID 0 240GB. I would recommend the Maxtor's though, just a couple of bucks more.

On Newegg SATA driver generally are just a few buck more than PATA drives - the exception is the Raptors. My Raptor had connections for both SATA and molex power connections - if the drive you choose does not its just a matter of buying an adapter........no biggie. I would said check out the Maxtor DimondMax series of drives. This was what I was going to pickup before I decided to go Raptor - great drives and seriously fast but I gave about $130ish for a 36 GB hard drive. No biggie for me as I have a 160 GB PATA drive I use for data but thats alot cash for little space. I also cant give you a really good idea of the benefits of the 10,000 rpm drive as I was upgrading from a 5400 rpm drive - you may not notice the difference between 10,000 and 7200 unless your working with very large files. Read reviews - do some research.

i have a question, are the PCI adapter cards as fast as onboard sata? my mobo dosent support sata, but was consitering getting a new hdd before a new mb...

Quote: Originally Posted by Demon Made i have a question, are the PCI adapter cards as fast as onboard sata? my mobo dosent support sata, but was consitering getting a new hdd before a new mb...

wel like all of the pci cards compared to onboard r usually slower but not enough to notice a differance i wouldnt wrry bout it if i were u

AND would the cost differ between 10000 RMP and 7200 im at a 5400 RPM 20 gig maxtor that my old 4 gig hdd could do better and for once id like to see wut my motherboard can doo with a decent hdd
soo....
OH and plus im canadian soo newegg is outa the question right cuz i sorta dont like payin the extra 50 bux on conversion rates are there any canadian sites besides NCIX.com????

There is an edit button Ipapirny. You can add to a post instead of double posting.

No, your add in card will not be as fast as native support for SATA.

There is a BIG price difference between 7200 rpm and 10,000 rpm drives. You pay half again as much and you get only half the space.

wait. SATA2???? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

I'm already delaying my purchases as long as possible for PCI-X! what timeframe are we talking about here?

Quote: Originally Posted by Dakas wait. SATA2???? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I'm already delaying my purchases as long as possible for PCI-X! what timeframe are we talking about here?

well whens SATA 2 due out and is it the same conectors as sata or is it gonna be another interface ???
and is it even gonna be worth the wait ?

Don't you dude's read the computer news? I would advise you to get familiar with current technology.

"Next generation of SATA is making it's debut as early as Q3 this year. Users wanting to take advantage of this will definitely need new motherboard and hard drives but there is very little information whether new cables or any additional hardware will be required."

thanks for the info, BA. Looks like i'll be making my purchases before it comes out. ah well, who needs another 1.5g/s?

I learned along time ago you cant keep waiting for the next best thing - other wise you would never be using ANY technology. The next best cell phones, PDAs, PC, TV etc are always just around the corner - thats the way it works. If you wait for this, then you will be waiting for that etc.......buy what you need now and just use the shat already....

I replaced my boot drive about a year ago. My old one was a Western Digital 40GB, 7200rpm, parallel ATA drive. My new drive is a Western Digital Raptor, 36GB, 10,000rpm, serial ATA drive. Other than the hard drives, my rig has the same hardware, the same OS, and about the same programs installed; but now my PC now boots up 18 seconds quicker. (Doesn't sound like much, but try sitting in front of your pc and counting to 18 while doing nothing!) Personally, I'd attribute most of the performance increase to the faster rotational speed, rather than the serial interface, but either way, I'm happy!