Need advice for new hard drive

[MarkW]

I have a couple pc's that I am considering upgrading the hard drive
on. Both have motherboards that can handle the newer SATA hard
drives. As well, I am currently using ATA133 hard drives but on one
system I am getting an odd clicking problem from the hard drive at
times. I know it must be going bad and would rather replace it before
it does. On the other system the hard drive is fine but I have a
virus on the system that i have been unable to wipe out and am
planning on reformatting and installing everything fresh and I figured
that's the best time to replace a hard drive. The hard drives are
getting old on both systems and more or less I want to do it as
preventative maintenance.
My question, is it worth the little extra money of going for a SATA
instead of ATA133?
Are all SATA drives created equal? I see some listed as SATA 150.
Are these faster?
As well, I was planning on going with a 200 gig hard drive but I
noticed with Maxtor they have a 250 gig that is available with both a
8mb and a 16mb buffer so I thought maybe it's worth going to this. Is
the 16mb buffer going to make a big change in speed that it's worth
going for that over the 8mb or the 200 gig?
Are there any other brands I should look at? Overall I've been happy
with Maxtor and in the past was unhappy with Western Digital. I never
have tried Seagate. Thanks for any help.

 

[Rich Barry]

Mark, one thing to consider is the age of your computers. You may have to
get a PCI SATA Controller Card. But I think
it's worth the investment. If you like Maxtor then stick with it.

 

[CJT]

Mark, one thing to consider is the age of your computers. You may have to
get a PCI SATA Controller Card. But I think
it's worth the investment. If you like Maxtor then stick with it.

One of the first things he wrote was that both would handle SATA.

 

[Tod]

All current SATA hard drives are SATA 150
SATA 150 drives are just a tiny bit faster then ATA100/133 drives.
SATA is the wave of the future and ATA will fade away, So any SATA drive
you buy now could be used on future computers more then an ATA drive.

 

[MarkW]

I appreciate all the advice I have received. One thing I've been
concerned with is that there is potential the SATA drives could be
slower than the ATA/133 drives I have now. I don't know the model
number offhand except that they are maxtor drives. Maybe compared to
older ATA133 drives they wouldn't be slower.
The motherboards I have are both ASUS motherboards. One is the P4P800
Deluxe, the other is the A7N8X-E. I am looking at the specs. and
hoping it may give me some information so I can figure out how good
the SATA controller is on them. It does list the P4P800 Deluxe board
as having a Southbridge controller which I think is for both the SATA
and the ATA133. Actually it also says it supports RAID 0,1. It has a
VIA6410 RAID controller. For the A7N8X-E it doesn't say it's a
southbridge controller. it says it supports RAID 0, RAID 1. It has a
Silicon Image Sil 3112A RAID Controller.
Next, as for what I use my computer for, I do a lot of web browsing,
email, office work (Excel, Word) but as well am getting more into
graphic design and am doing some desktop video as well (Pinnacle
Studio 9).
Also, I likely would stay away from SCSI but am curious about RAID. I
probably have the wrong idea about it but from what I thought of RAID
it's simply two drives working together that if one fails it's hot
swappable and you can easily replace one and it'll replicate from the
other drive. Basically that it's two mirrored drives acting as backup
to each other.
From what I read though is it something that makes a drive act faster?
Do you need to buy a specific drive that supports RAID?
From what I see this motherboard supports it. The boards both say
they support RAID 0,1 for SATA. Is this a technology that will make
my hard drives faster?

 

[Tod]

ATA & SATA RAID controllers offer you more then one option.
Different brands (Highpoint, Promise, VIA, etc) offer more RAID options over
others.

Mirroring, TWO hard drive setup
you can have one hard drive backing up another.
(if the first hard drive fails, the second one is ready to take over, your
"Hot Swap")

Faster transfers, TWO hard drive setup
You can have two hard drives acting as one, the controller splits
all files (operating system, programs, data, etc) 50% per drive.
(faster transfers as the two drives share the workload)

(Main stream PC computers (like servers) with SCSI controllers
can have from 2 to 15 SCSI (or more) hard drives acting as one hard drive).

Mirroring & Faster Transfers, FOUR hard drive setup
You can have two hard drives running split 50-50
then have two more hard drives running split 50-50 and backing up
(mirroring) the first two hard drives.
Faster transfers and the "Hot Swap".

Any ATA or SATA hard drive can work with RAID.
(I've always assumed people do not mix hard drive brands on RAID setups)

Another feature which helps speed up data transfers off a hard drive is
Command Queuing.
Which has been a feature common on SCSI drives and is just now (?) being
offered on ATA & SATA drives.

This is my best info on RAID, other may have a more informed knowledge.

 

[MarkW]

I am definitely getting a SATA drive and am looking at ordering any
day but another thing I ran into, I saw online that when you order a
lot of places sell SATA power adaptors. I know I need to buy a data
cable but as well, will my power supply's regular cables (the ones I
use with my IDE drives) not work? Do I need an adaptor? I am going
with the Maxtor 250.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

All current SATA hard drives are SATA 150.

SATA 150 drives are just a tiny bit faster then ATA100/133 drives.

Only when they are technologically more advanced (i.e. latest) models that aren't
also made available in P-ATA form. Otherwise P-ATA/SATA is equally fast.

SATA is the wave of the future and ATA will fade away, So any SATA drive
you buy now could be used on future computers more then an ATA drive.

[snip]

 

[Odie Ferrous]

All current SATA hard drives are SATA 150.

SATA 150 drives are just a tiny bit faster then ATA100/133 drives.

Only when they are technologically more advanced (i.e. latest) models that aren't
also made available in P-ATA form. Otherwise P-ATA/SATA is equally fast.

SATA is the wave of the future and ATA will fade away, So any SATA drive
you buy now could be used on future computers more then an ATA drive.

[snip]

Folkert,

What's your take on NCQ? Have you done any testing yet?

From what I can make out it's the usual marketing hype - perhaps a 5-7%
performance increase at best.

Good marketing though - people appear to be specifying it as "definite
requirement" in systems.


Odie

 

[J. Clarke]

All current SATA hard drives are SATA 150.

SATA 150 drives are just a tiny bit faster then ATA100/133 drives.

Only when they are technologically more advanced (i.e. latest) models
that aren't also made available in P-ATA form. Otherwise P-ATA/SATA is
equally fast.

SATA is the wave of the future and ATA will fade away, So any SATA
drive you buy now could be used on future computers more then an ATA
drive.

I have a couple pc's that I am considering upgrading the hard drive
on.

[snip]

Folkert,

What's your take on NCQ? Have you done any testing yet?

From what I can make out it's the usual marketing hype - perhaps a 5-7%
performance increase at best.

Good marketing though - people appear to be specifying it as "definite
requirement" in systems.

Storage Review ran some tests. They found that the performance difference
was minimal and that only when the usage pattern was characteristic of a
heavily utilized server and not a desktop. Whether you believe Storage
Review is another story.