Adding SATA card to UDMA/133 motherboard worth it?

[ephedralover]

I need a new hard drive and would like to know if I get a SATA card
and a SATA II hard drive if it will be a noticeable gain over my
current UDMA 133 drives? Does having the SATA port on the motherboard
as opposed to a card make a difference? Thanks.

 

[Rod Speed]

I need a new hard drive and would like to know if I get
a SATA card and a SATA II hard drive if it will be a
noticeable gain over my current UDMA 133 drives?

You will get a noticeable gain with a current hard drive,
but there is no performance advantage with sata, it just
gives you more future when you move to a new motherboard.
Current new motherboards mostly only support a pair of
UDMA drives, and you normally need one for an optical drive.

Does having the SATA port on the motherboard
as opposed to a card make a difference?

Yes, particularly with a PCI sata card.

 

[SteveH]

You will get a noticeable gain with a current hard drive,
but there is no performance advantage with sata, it just
gives you more future when you move to a new motherboard.
Current new motherboards mostly only support a pair of
UDMA drives, and you normally need one for an optical drive.

Do you mean IDE drives there? Even SATA drives support UDMA

 

[Rod Speed]

Do you mean IDE drives there?

Nope, I meant UDMA. Thats how a number of motherboard
manufacturers list the drives supported, so I used his terminology
because that is likely to be where he got his terminology from.

Even SATA drives support UDMA

Duh.

 

[ephedralover]

Nope, I meant UDMA. Thats how a number of motherboard
manufacturers list the drives supported, so I used his terminology
because that is likely to be where he got his terminology from.


Duh.

So it is worth adding a SATA II pci card instead of getting a new
motherboard that has the SATA ports already?

 

[fwibbler]

I need a new hard drive and would like to know if I get a SATA card
and a SATA II hard drive if it will be a noticeable gain over my
current UDMA 133 drives? Does having the SATA port on the motherboard
as opposed to a card make a difference? Thanks.

If your current drives are old and slow then any new drive will be an
improvement whether it be IDE or SATA.
If your board has SATA ports then use them. Usually these can take full
advantage of the SATA speed transfers.
PCI SATA cards are theoretically limited by the PCI bus speed (max 133MB/s)
In reality, 133MB/s will never be reached and will make little difference.

Cheers!

 

[ephedralover]

If your current drives are old and slow then any new drive will be an
improvement whether it be IDE or SATA.
If your board has SATA ports then use them. Usually these can take full
advantage of the SATA speed transfers.
PCI SATA cards are theoretically limited by the PCI bus speed (max 133MB/s)
In reality, 133MB/s will never be reached and will make little difference.

Cheers!

Thats what I was looking for. Thanks.

 

[Rod Speed]

So it is worth adding a SATA II pci card instead of getting
a new motherboard that has the SATA ports already?

The only real point of a sata pci card is to allow you to use
sata drives in a system which doesnt have any sata ports,
so you can reuse those sata drives in a new system later
which does have sata ports.