SATA or IDE?

[zm]

I need to buy a new HD.

Should I buy a SATA 150 (and a extra PCI controler.MB doesn't have
SATA) or a IDE HD?

Is SATA really faster?

AMD 2200+, 512MB, Wind XP, AGP 128

I want later to copy video cassete to DVD.

Thanks for any help.

 

[Bubba]

zm's log on stardate 18 ruj 2004

Should I buy a SATA 150 (and a extra PCI controler.MB doesn't have
SATA) or a IDE HD?

Is SATA really faster?

If you are home user, you will not recognize the difference. Since you
have to buy controller too, you shouldn't think about SATA disk.

 

[Azaran2003]

Should I buy a SATA 150 (and a extra PCI controler.MB doesn't have

SATA) or a IDE HD?

Is SATA really faster?

I wouldn't recommend it. While SATA has a theoretical faster transfer rate,
right now its really not any faster than a normal PATA (IDE) Hard drive.
If you had a board that supported SATA I'd say go for it just to cut down on
cable clutter. However a controller care does cost round 50 or so and SATA
drives are a lil more expensive than PATA drives.

Now all that being said, since your planing on going in to video I'd really
recommend going with something bigger than a 150. Also cache size may make a
bit of difference there. In that case getting a SATA drive may be a good idea.
Last I checked Maxtor was making a 300 gig drive with a 16meg cache (sweet
drive, I have it) but its only in SATA (and if I'm wrong here, someone let me
know). In that case you may notice some difference in the read/write rates.
Last test I saw showed the drive beating out Raptors.

Take a look at some reviews around the net, see if the cost is worth it. And
good luck.

~A

 

[kony]

I need to buy a new HD.

Should I buy a SATA 150 (and a extra PCI controler.MB doesn't have
SATA) or a IDE HD?
Nope.

Is SATA really faster?

In limited situations it is, but not with typical drives and
when using a PCI card to gain the feature.

AMD 2200+, 512MB, Wind XP, AGP 128

I want later to copy video cassete to DVD.

Since you're working with video I suggest simply getting
largest capacity the budget will allow. Anything modern is
fast enough for capturing compressed video and burning to
DVD.

 

[Shep©]

In limited situations it is, but not with typical drives and
when using a PCI card to gain the feature.


Since you're working with video I suggest simply getting
largest capacity the budget will allow. Anything modern is
fast enough for capturing compressed video and burning to
DVD.

And plenty of RAM



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[formerly known as 'cat arranger']

: On Sat, 18 Sep 2004 08:15:58 +0100, zm
:
: >
: >I need to buy a new HD.
: >
: >Should I buy a SATA 150 (and a extra PCI controler.MB doesn't have
: >SATA) or a IDE HD?
:
: Nope.
:
: >Is SATA really faster?
:
: In limited situations it is, but not with typical drives and
: when using a PCI card to gain the feature.
:
: >
: >AMD 2200+, 512MB, Wind XP, AGP 128
: >
: >I want later to copy video cassete to DVD.
:
: Since you're working with video I suggest simply getting
: largest capacity the budget will allow. Anything modern is
: fast enough for capturing compressed video and burning to
: DVD.
:

I'm a little confused. The processing time for rendering videos
is pretty high and so would seem to be the limiting factor. Why
would a faster SATA drive make a difference? Would a
10,000 rpm make a difference?

 

[zm]

But Seagate SATA has 8 MB buffer.

Isn't that good for I/O?

 

[kony]

: Since you're working with video I suggest simply getting
: largest capacity the budget will allow. Anything modern is
: fast enough for capturing compressed video and burning to
: DVD.
:

I'm a little confused. The processing time for rendering videos
is pretty high and so would seem to be the limiting factor. Why
would a faster SATA drive make a difference? Would a
10,000 rpm make a difference?

Define render.
I only use the term for CG.

Processing time is entirely dependant on what's being done,
could be bottlenecked by a drive or not, depending on job,
just how much this is going to be filtered or (whatever)
instead of just a straight conversion to mpeg before
recorded to DVD.

Simply copying video cassette to a hard drive, the mpeg can
be done realtime and hard drive need not be fast at all, a 5
year old drive would be plenty fast enough. If for some
reason OP wanted optimal quality (if you could call it that,
we are talking about video cassettes, which if that means
VCR tapes, will look horrible on a PC) then the capture
could be done with lossless compression and would need a
slight faster HDD, but still any 5 year old drive would be
fast enough... but with lower loss or lossless codecs the
filesizes are larger so the capacity is more important.

 

[kony]

But Seagate SATA has 8 MB buffer.

Isn't that good for I/O?

Yes, good but not necessary, lesser benefit for single large
video file. Since it's quite common these days with small
price difference, might as well have 8MB.

 

[Ron Reaugh]

I need to buy a new HD.

Should I buy a SATA 150 (and a extra PCI controler.MB doesn't have
SATA) or a IDE HD?

Is SATA really faster?

Nope but some SATA HDs like the WDC Raptor are faster.

AMD 2200+, 512MB, Wind XP, AGP 128

I want later to copy video cassete to DVD.

You might want a big HD like the Hitachi 7K400, which is almost as fast as
the Raptor. The 7K400 comes in both PATA and SATA but mostly only the SATA
version is in distribution.

 

[formerly known as 'cat arranger']

: On Sat, 18 Sep 2004 08:35:37 -0700, "formerly known as 'cat
:
:
: >: Since you're working with video I suggest simply getting
: >: largest capacity the budget will allow. Anything modern is
: >: fast enough for capturing compressed video and burning to
: >: DVD.
: >:
: >
: >I'm a little confused. The processing time for rendering videos
: >is pretty high and so would seem to be the limiting factor. Why
: >would a faster SATA drive make a difference? Would a
: >10,000 rpm make a difference?
: >
: >
:
: Define render.
: I only use the term for CG.
:
: Processing time is entirely dependant on what's being done,
: could be bottlenecked by a drive or not, depending on job,
: just how much this is going to be filtered or (whatever)
: instead of just a straight conversion to mpeg before
: recorded to DVD.
:
: Simply copying video cassette to a hard drive, the mpeg can
: be done realtime and hard drive need not be fast at all, a 5
: year old drive would be plenty fast enough. If for some
: reason OP wanted optimal quality (if you could call it that,
: we are talking about video cassettes, which if that means
: VCR tapes, will look horrible on a PC) then the capture
: could be done with lossless compression and would need a
: slight faster HDD, but still any 5 year old drive would be
: fast enough... but with lower loss or lossless codecs the
: filesizes are larger so the capacity is more important.

To me render means processing, like resizing, converting,
filtering... like from a DVD format to VCD. When you say
that things can be done realtime, that is still pretty slow, a
lot slower than copying a file obviously, so at realtime a
1G file would take 30 minutes to process, so where does
a fast hard drive help? When would a job be bottlenecked
by the speed of the hard drive? I guess that is my question.

 

[kony]

To me render means processing, like resizing, converting,
filtering... like from a DVD format to VCD. When you say
that things can be done realtime, that is still pretty slow, a
lot slower than copying a file obviously, so at realtime a
1G file would take 30 minutes to process, so where does
a fast hard drive help? When would a job be bottlenecked
by the speed of the hard drive? I guess that is my question.

Suppose you're adding/subtracting/mixing/etc an audio
track... HDD may easily be the slowest part. Same for
cutting frames.

 

[Ron Reaugh]

Suppose you're adding/subtracting/mixing/etc an audio
track... HDD may easily be the slowest part. Same for
cutting frames.

Nope, not with current ATA HDs. In a very complex audio mixing
situation the issue could be seek time limited and that is usually addressed
with multiple HDs.

 

[kony]

Suppose you're adding/subtracting/mixing/etc an audio
track... HDD may easily be the slowest part. Same for
cutting frames.

Nope, not with current ATA HDs. In a very complex audio mixing
situation the issue could be seek time limited and that is usually addressed
with multiple HDs.

?

Within scenarios I mentioned, the hard drive is most often
the slowest part. A pair of RAID0 Raptors is still going to
be the bottleneck by far, SATA HDDs don't begin to change
this, it is for the most part a file-copy operation. Sure,
it's possible to think up (and even come across) situations
where there is enough processing required to make that a
bottleneck instead, as it often is... it was never claimed
otherwise.

 

[Ron Reaugh]

On Sat, 18 Sep 2004 16:26:03 -0700, "formerly known as 'cat


To me render means processing, like resizing, converting,
filtering... like from a DVD format to VCD. When you say
that things can be done realtime, that is still pretty slow, a
lot slower than copying a file obviously, so at realtime a
1G file would take 30 minutes to process, so where does
a fast hard drive help? When would a job be bottlenecked
by the speed of the hard drive? I guess that is my question.

Suppose you're adding/subtracting/mixing/etc an audio
track... HDD may easily be the slowest part. Same for
cutting frames.

Nope, not with current ATA HDs. In a very complex audio mixing
situation the issue could be seek time limited and that is usually addressed
with multiple HDs.

?

Within scenarios I mentioned, the hard drive is most often
the slowest part. A pair of RAID0 Raptors is still going to
be the bottleneck by far,

Not for audio. Audio is relatively low bandwidth. A pair of RAID 0 Raptors
is knocking on the door of PCI bus limit.

SATA HDDs don't begin to change
this,

Change what?

it is for the most part a file-copy operation. Sure,
it's possible to think up (and even come across) situations
where there is enough processing required to make that a
bottleneck instead, as it often is... it was never claimed
otherwise.

As in any copy operation it goes faster betwen two drives/arrays rather than
to-from same drive array. You'll need a higher performance PCI bus for
that.

 

[kony]

Not for audio. Audio is relatively low bandwidth. A pair of RAID 0 Raptors
is knocking on the door of PCI bus limit.


Change what?

That it can often be, for the most part, a file-copying
operation... the HDD (or controller, resident bus, for HDD)
is the limit.

As in any copy operation it goes faster betwen two drives/arrays rather than
to-from same drive array. You'll need a higher performance PCI bus for
that.

Yes, agreed, but still of the components being considered,
the HDD performance (whether it be limited by PATA, PCI, or
particular drive(s) ) can be constrained by the subsystem
involved in HDD data I/O, rather than memory, CPU, etc.

 

[formerly known as 'cat arranger']

:
: : > On Sat, 18 Sep 2004 16:26:03 -0700, "formerly known as 'cat
: >
: >
: > >To me render means processing, like resizing, converting,
: > >filtering... like from a DVD format to VCD. When you say
: > >that things can be done realtime, that is still pretty slow, a
: > >lot slower than copying a file obviously, so at realtime a
: > >1G file would take 30 minutes to process, so where does
: > >a fast hard drive help? When would a job be bottlenecked
: > >by the speed of the hard drive? I guess that is my question.
: >
: > Suppose you're adding/subtracting/mixing/etc an audio
: > track... HDD may easily be the slowest part. Same for
: > cutting frames.
:
: Nope, not with current ATA HDs. In a very complex audio mixing
: situation the issue could be seek time limited and that is usually
addressed
: with multiple HDs.
:
:

Doesn't caching help too?

 

[formerly known as 'cat arranger']

: On Sun, 19 Sep 2004 01:50:34 GMT, "Ron Reaugh"
:
: >
: >: >> On Sat, 18 Sep 2004 16:26:03 -0700, "formerly known as 'cat
: >>
: >>
: >> >To me render means processing, like resizing, converting,
: >> >filtering... like from a DVD format to VCD. When you say
: >> >that things can be done realtime, that is still pretty slow, a
: >> >lot slower than copying a file obviously, so at realtime a
: >> >1G file would take 30 minutes to process, so where does
: >> >a fast hard drive help? When would a job be bottlenecked
: >> >by the speed of the hard drive? I guess that is my question.
: >>
: >> Suppose you're adding/subtracting/mixing/etc an audio
: >> track... HDD may easily be the slowest part. Same for
: >> cutting frames.
: >
: >Nope, not with current ATA HDs. In a very complex audio mixing
: >situation the issue could be seek time limited and that is usually
addressed
: >with multiple HDs.
: >
:
: ?
:
: Within scenarios I mentioned, the hard drive is most often
: the slowest part. A pair of RAID0 Raptors is still going to
: be the bottleneck by far, SATA HDDs don't begin to change
: this, it is for the most part a file-copy operation. Sure,
: it's possible to think up (and even come across) situations
: where there is enough processing required to make that a
: bottleneck instead, as it often is... it was never claimed
: otherwise.

I wonder why there aren't large RAM-drives. It seems like
some of the older, cheaper RAM could be made into huge
RAM-disks that would be magnitudes quicker.

 

[Ron Reaugh]

:
: : > On Sat, 18 Sep 2004 16:26:03 -0700, "formerly known as 'cat
: >
: >
: > >To me render means processing, like resizing, converting,
: > >filtering... like from a DVD format to VCD. When you say
: > >that things can be done realtime, that is still pretty slow, a
: > >lot slower than copying a file obviously, so at realtime a
: > >1G file would take 30 minutes to process, so where does
: > >a fast hard drive help? When would a job be bottlenecked
: > >by the speed of the hard drive? I guess that is my question.
: >
: > Suppose you're adding/subtracting/mixing/etc an audio
: > track... HDD may easily be the slowest part. Same for
: > cutting frames.
:
: Nope, not with current ATA HDs. In a very complex audio mixing
: situation the issue could be seek time limited and that is usually
addressed
: with multiple HDs.
:
:

Doesn't caching help too?

Potentially YES.

 

[Ron Reaugh]

I wonder why there aren't large RAM-drives. It seems like
some of the older, cheaper RAM could be made into huge
RAM-disks that would be magnitudes quicker.

The older EVEN used isn't really cheaper because it's much
smaller....remember Moore's law.