Need Hard Disk Advice

[Brian_Holiday]

I am about to buy some new storage and I need some advice. I have a choice of ATA100 and SATA1. The storage will primarily be used for Video Capture and storage of the captures. Occasionally I will use it for gaming. I currently have a 2.4 AMD with a GB of ram, but will soon be upgrading to a Athlon 64 or better.

I have a source for ATA100 250Gb for ~$70 SATA 250s at ~$109 (plus $24 for the card)

Is it worth it to pay $65 more per disk for SATA?

TIA,

BH

[shanenin]

I was always curious about the performance differences between the two. Even though SATA has a bigger pipe, it it needed?

are both drives equal speed(RPM)? I would think(my guess) a 7200 ide or 7200 SATA would be equal in performance

It seems the higher thruput that an SATA gives is only needed with higher rpm drives(again just a guess)

Edited September 8, 2005 by shanenin

[CataclysmCow]

You aren't going to see any difference in performance just in the difference between ATA and SATA (all other things being equal). ATA-100 is more than enough throughput for even the fastest 10k drives right now.

The only real gain SATA has over ATA in performance right now is NCQ (Native Command Queuing). You'll only see a gain here in an application like a file server handling requests from dozens of users with multiple disks. Typical single user PCs just can't build up a queue length deep enough to take advantage of NCQ. Benchmarks I've seen for single user machines show little to no improvement in avg seek times unless the queue depth was artificially increased.

[Brian_Holiday]

I was always curious about the performance differences between the two. Even though SATA has a bigger pipe, it it needed?

are both drives equal speed(RPM)? I would think(my guess) a 7200 ide or 7200 SATA would be equal in performance

It seems the higher thruput that an SATA gives is only needed with higher rpm drives(again just a guess)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Both drives are 7200rpm with 8Mb cache. The max theoritical rates are 100mb and 150mb respectively. I just don't know if it makes a difference with my setup. Research so far isn't helping me quantify the benefit, and the techs I have local don't know either..

BH

Edited September 8, 2005 by Brian_Holiday

[shanenin]

The max theoritical rates are 100mb and 150mb respectively.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

those max rates must be what the cables can put thru, but I don't think either will ever even need the max rate of 100mb/(per second?) . The extra thruput of a SATA will never be used. This is my understaning

[Brian_Holiday]

Ok, I think I have our answer:

Quote (May 2005):

"However, the higher bandwidth of the SATA II interface offers practically no measurable improvements in real world applications at the moment, as the magnetic medium is the limiting factor."

Full:

Toms hardware

So SATA isn't needed on my machine now since I don't need hot pluggable drives or have heat problems. I guess I'll just save the cash this time and get the UltraATA drive unless anyone sees something I missed.

Regards,

BH

[shanenin]

I found this quote also to back up what you found

The interface acts as the bridge that transfers data between the HDD and the PC. The most important algorithm for data transfer is that, the data transfer rate of the interface should always be higher than the internal transfer rate of the HDD, so as to avoid bottlenecks of data transfer. The transfer rate of an ATA-6 (UDMA100) interface currently used is 100 MB per second, which is enough to prevent a bottleneck for a 7200 RPM HDD with a maximum of 55 MB transfer rate per second.

you only need 55mb/s . So 100mb/s is almost twice the throughput you need.

the only real advantage I see to SATA is cosmetic, the cables are thinner. In your case having to add a card would clutter it up.

[CataclysmCow]

Ok, I think I have our answer:

Quote (May 2005):

"However, the higher bandwidth of the SATA II interface offers practically no measurable improvements in real world applications at the moment, as the magnetic medium is the limiting factor."

Full:

Toms hardware

So SATA isn't needed on my machine now since I don't need hot pluggable drives or have heat problems.  I guess I'll just save the cash this time and get the UltraATA drive unless anyone sees something I missed.

Regards,

    BH

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'd be weary of a site that can't even get it's facts straight. SATA II is not an interface. There's SATA-150 and SATA-300. SATA II was the name the of the SATA specifications committee and now refers to a group of extensions that can be offered on SATA150 or SATA300 devices. The advice that you quoted is correct though.

To give you an idea of transfer rates the best SATA drive available (WD740GD) can push a little more than 70MB/s sustained on the outter cylinders. It averages out at about 60MB/s. Typical 7200rpm drives average out under 50MB/s. In real world use you'll usually only see about 30-40MB/s from your drive. The added throughput of ATA-100 or SATA-150 would only be usefull in a cache hit ("burst rate").

Edited September 8, 2005 by CataclysmCow

[Brian_Holiday]

I'd be weary of a site that can't even get its facts straight.  SATA II is not an interface.  There's SATA-150 and SATA-300.  SATA II was the name the of the SATA specifications committee and now refers to a group of extensions that can be offered on SATA150 or SATA300 devices.  The advice that you quoted is correct though.

To give you an idea of transfer rates the best SATA drive available (WD740GD) can push a little more than 70MB/s sustained on the outer cylinders.  It averages out at about 60MB/s.  Typical 7200rpm drives average out under 50MB/s.  In real world use you'll usually only see about 30-40MB/s from your drive.  The added throughput of ATA-100 or SATA-150 would only be useful in a cache hit ("burst rate").

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Elsewhere on the site it explained how SATA II was actually a misnomer, and it should be called SATA150/SATA300, but I see your point. The research showed a real difference on the raptors, especially the 10k rpm drives (which I now understand). Unfortunately I won't buy WD's because of past problems with RMAs and their extremely short warranty period.

I think I am going to go with the Seagate, which is a little slower, a lot quieter, and covered by a 5-year warranty. When I switch to SATA, I can reuse it in one of my Tivos.

I really can't see how manufacturers can justify a 30% premium on these drives, they aren't any faster right now. I guess we are all just suckers!

Thanks!

BH

[DOSError]

Why don't you just get this for $39?

Oh and I notice no difference in speed between SATA and ATA. The only difference is the cables are neater.

[xxkbxx]

My boss told me that SATA is good for working with large files, such as video editing

[Brian_Holiday]

Why don't you just get this for $39?

Oh and I notice no difference in speed between SATA and ATA. The only difference is the cables are neater.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It must have been for 1 day only, it is now $139.

BH

[DOSError]

Rats...

I tried.

Edited September 9, 2005 by DOSError

[ampshock]

My boss told me that SATA is good for working with large files, such as video editing

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Your boss is correct, I have a SATA hard drive (Maxtor 250GB) Great proformance, better air flow in case, Faster installs.

Then again best for large servers and there is realy no large difference in speed.

Although if I was you I would get SATA if I was doing lots Media work.

[Brian_Holiday]

Rats...

I tried.   

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks for trying. I think we should pin a thread on the good deals we found on stuff related to the board. How do we do that?

BH