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what is Serial - ATA

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
in General Chat
and how is it different from IDE? can i just plug a SATA harddisc into the mobo with IDE cables?

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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    In order to do that you'd need some kind of IDE - SATA convertor. The two use completely different cables.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    is ata faster then? they seem in the same price range..
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    so if i get a motherboard with 4 SATA conenctions and 1 IDE i guess that means theres only room for 2 IDE devices primary and secondary. i.e. 1 old harddisc and 1xDVDRW
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    TheSovereign wrote:
    so if i get a motherboard with 4 SATA conenctions and 1 IDE i guess that means theres only room for 2 IDE devices primary and secondary. i.e. 1 old harddisc and 1xDVDRW


    Yup ^^
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    SATA is theoretically faster.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    TheSovereign wrote:
    and how is it different from IDE? can i just plug a SATA harddisc into the mobo with IDE cables?


    Uses about 2 or 4 wires in the cables I think comapred to 40 or 80 wires in an IDE cable. Cables are thinner much easier to route inside of a PC and improves airflow.

    Funny how computing always goes in circles, we started off with serial, went to parallel and now back to serial.

    Probabaly not any faster the IDE in real life cos the performace of both systems is well beyound they actual speed of the hard drive

    I know one annoying thing in my HP Server is it's got a serial ATA as it's main drive and it's always spinning down when not in use, not sure why. Not controllable in windows from what I can see unlike the IDE drive.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I know this thread might be abit "old" but i've just come back off holiday so im going to fill in on some posts that take my fancy:)

    Seeing as the topic is SATA, Remove this part of my post if you wish mods but i've got a brand new 160 gig HD Sata and my Mobo dont have a sata so that sucks.

    Im going to sell it on ebay just wondering what price i should put the bidding at.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    You could probably buy a converter until you get a motherboard that does have SATA.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    CoolMe wrote:
    I know this thread might be abit "old" but i've just come back off holiday so im going to fill in on some posts that take my fancy:)

    Seeing as the topic is SATA, Remove this part of my post if you wish mods but i've got a brand new 160 gig HD Sata and my Mobo dont have a sata so that sucks.

    Im going to sell it on ebay just wondering what price i should put the bidding at.
    HDD go for 50p to a quid a gig these days.
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