why only 1 IDE on new motherboards?

[OhioGuy]

I haven't had a floppy drive on any of my systems for 3 years now, and I'm
wondering why in the world motherboard manufacturers are leaving the floppy
drive interface on the boards, but taking off the second IDE controller?

When upgrading, I find myself with a couple of optical drives, and a
couple of hard drives, all of which are IDE/PATA. I couldn't care less
whether there is a floppy controller on the board, but I truly miss having
the second IDE controller.

The fact that it is lacking essentially forces me to buy SATA drives that
I don't really need.

So why are they doing this?

 

[sdlomi2]

I haven't had a floppy drive on any of my systems for 3 years now, and
I'm wondering why in the world motherboard manufacturers are leaving the
floppy drive interface on the boards, but taking off the second IDE
controller?

When upgrading, I find myself with a couple of optical drives, and a
couple of hard drives, all of which are IDE/PATA. I couldn't care less
whether there is a floppy controller on the board, but I truly miss having
the second IDE controller.

The fact that it is lacking essentially forces me to buy SATA drives that
I don't really need.

So why are they doing this?

Can't you install an ide contoller card, like in a pci slot, and use
more ide-hardware? Seems it would be lots cheaper than buying new, sata
drives s

 

[spodosaurus]

I haven't had a floppy drive on any of my systems for 3 years now, and I'm
wondering why in the world motherboard manufacturers are leaving the floppy
drive interface on the boards, but taking off the second IDE controller?

When upgrading, I find myself with a couple of optical drives, and a
couple of hard drives, all of which are IDE/PATA. I couldn't care less
whether there is a floppy controller on the board, but I truly miss having
the second IDE controller.

The fact that it is lacking essentially forces me to buy SATA drives that
I don't really need.

No it doesn't. Shell out $20 for a PCI IDE controller card. I had to
recently, it's fine.

So why are they doing this?

--
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[Conor]

I haven't had a floppy drive on any of my systems for 3 years now, and I'm
wondering why in the world motherboard manufacturers are leaving the floppy
drive interface on the boards, but taking off the second IDE controller?

When upgrading, I find myself with a couple of optical drives, and a
couple of hard drives, all of which are IDE/PATA. I couldn't care less
whether there is a floppy controller on the board, but I truly miss having
the second IDE controller.

The fact that it is lacking essentially forces me to buy SATA drives that
I don't really need.

So why are they doing this?

Because IDE is now becoming a legacy interface and will disappear soon
I reckon.

 

[DonC]

I haven't had a floppy drive on any of my systems for 3 years now, and
I'm wondering why in the world motherboard manufacturers are leaving the
floppy drive interface on the boards, but taking off the second IDE
controller?

When upgrading, I find myself with a couple of optical drives, and a
couple of hard drives, all of which are IDE/PATA. I couldn't care less
whether there is a floppy controller on the board, but I truly miss having
the second IDE controller.

The fact that it is lacking essentially forces me to buy SATA drives that
I don't really need.

So why are they doing this?

1) PATA drives are being phased out for faster SATAs. They've left the 2
IDE connections for optical drives or an optical drive plus an IDE drive.

2) You need to carefully read the specs when buying a new MB nowadays. I
just bought an ASUS M2NPV-VM that supports 4 IDE devices and 4 SATAs for the
very same reasons you noted. I've got 2 opticals on the secondary and my
old system drive as slave on the primary IDE channel. I always leave my old
system drive connected as a data drive. It allows me the luxury of copying
data and "missing" dlls, etc. at my leisure during the transition period.

 

[Guest]

1) PATA drives are being phased out for faster SATAs. They've left the 2
IDE connections for optical drives or an optical drive plus an IDE drive.

While that's true, at this point it's way premature to be forcing people
to SATA. The installed base of IDE devices is huge, and still many
orders of magnitude greater than SATA.

It's the same stupid "logic" that is causing motherboard manufacturers
to put a grand total of two (and in some cases, ONE) standard PCI
slot on their boards. Utterly useless for everyone I know, but some
people must be buying them.

 

[DaveW]

Legacy hardware eventually is not allowed for. In the limited space of a a
motherboard the manufacturer has to make a decision as to what standard of
hardware will mostly be used with his product. SATA has been around for
years now and is the standard. IDE is old technology that most people
building new systems do NOT use.
Time to upgrade.

 

[Guest]

Legacy hardware eventually is not allowed for. In the limited space of a a
motherboard the manufacturer has to make a decision as to what standard of
hardware will mostly be used with his product. SATA has been around for
years now and is the standard. IDE is old technology that most people
building new systems do NOT use.
Time to upgrade.

Almost all of that is hogwash. Footprints of virtually all components
on a motherboard (cpus, chipsets, various controllers etc) are smaller
today than ever, in many cases /much/ smaller. What's driving the
trend toward elimination of support for "legacy" hardware, limited
choice with regard to I/O, limited expansion etc etc is Microsoft.
Read their roadmaps and their design guides. Ballmer's eventual
goal is to eliminate end user expansions and upgrades.

 

[DonC]

While that's true, at this point it's way premature to be forcing people
to SATA. The installed base of IDE devices is huge, and still many
orders of magnitude greater than SATA.

It's the same stupid "logic" that is causing motherboard manufacturers
to put a grand total of two (and in some cases, ONE) standard PCI
slot on their boards. Utterly useless for everyone I know, but some
people must be buying them.

Nobody is "forcing" you to upgrade to SATA. You can still buy boards that
will support 4 PATA devices -- as I did.

PCI slots are a separate issue. More functions have been provided on the MB
negating the necessity of separate PCI boards. Use to be you needed slots
for network cards, modems, sound cards, 1394 ports, etc., etc. Also USB
ports have replaced many dedicated interface cards. But I do tend to agree
that they've gone too far. My MB has 2 standard PCI slots but one is
unusable because the fan on the video card blocks it. Luckily, I'm satisfied
with the onboard sound. I use the one accessible PCI slot for a wireless
card so I'm maxed out.

 

[DonC]

Almost all of that is hogwash. Footprints of virtually all components
on a motherboard (cpus, chipsets, various controllers etc) are smaller
today than ever, in many cases /much/ smaller. What's driving the
trend toward elimination of support for "legacy" hardware, limited
choice with regard to I/O, limited expansion etc etc is Microsoft.
Read their roadmaps and their design guides. Ballmer's eventual
goal is to eliminate end user expansions and upgrades.

And what you claim is hogwash too as regards Microsoft. The performance
advantage of SATA relative to PATA is significant; it's the right technology
at the right time - NOW. Disk drive costs are at a historic low on a $/GB
basis. And SATAs are priced about the same as PATAs so why in the world
would any knowledgeable upgrader want to stick with PATA drives?

 

[Conor]

And what you claim is hogwash too as regards Microsoft. The performance
advantage of SATA relative to PATA is significant; it's the right technology
at the right time - NOW. Disk drive costs are at a historic low on a $/GB
basis. And SATAs are priced about the same as PATAs so why in the world
would any knowledgeable upgrader want to stick with PATA drives?

Like AGP, for the most part, the performance increases of SATA over
PATA are negligble if any at all on a like for like basis.

AGP cards can still match PCI ones in a like for like chipset because
even using the latest chipsets, the AGP 8x slot isn't even close to
being maxed out.

I'll explain WITH PROOF.

SATA and PCIe were introduced not to give us increased performace
because the old ports had reached their limit but instead for no other
reason than to generate money in new hardware sales. Why buy a new
motherboard when your existing one would run the latest kit at full
speed? Convince people the new port is faster than the old by only
releasing new faster hardware on the new port and you've suckered them
in and pocketed their money.

And some proof..

Here's one comparison of the ATi X1950XT AGP vs PCIe where in some
tests, the AGP version was faster...
http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews/Sapphire X1950Pro AGP/index.php

And in real life use, I challenge anyone to post me HDTach benchmarks
showing their drive exceeding the 133Mbit/s limit of the ATAPI
interface.

 

[Matt]

basis. And SATAs are priced about the same as PATAs so why in the world
would any knowledgeable upgrader want to stick with PATA drives?

Because a lot of people still have three-year-old 160G IDE drives that
are more than adequate installed in systems with CPUs that are inadequate.

 

[DonC]

Like AGP, for the most part, the performance increases of SATA over
PATA are negligble if any at all on a like for like basis.

So how do I explain a +58.5% write speed / +75.4% read speed increase
benchmark results comparing my old PATA system drive vs. my new SATA system
drive? It also confirms my subjective assessment of I/O speed.

I think you're working overtime to resist normal performance enhancements
that have been part of the PC technology evolution for the past 20+ years
; ) Nobody's making you give up your old technology. So give it a rest!

 

[DonC]

Because a lot of people still have three-year-old 160G IDE drives that are
more than adequate installed in systems with CPUs that are inadequate.

Which is exactly why I bought a MB with SATA AND PATA connection.

But the term "adequate" is subjective. A 1970s era unairconditioned sedan
is "adequate" to transport me in southern Arizona but my 2007 sedan does a
much better job ; )

 

[Conor]

So how do I explain a +58.5% write speed / +75.4% read speed increase
benchmark results comparing my old PATA system drive vs. my new SATA system
drive? It also confirms my subjective assessment of I/O speed.

FFS...did you read a single thing about what I wrote or are you
incapable of understanding it?

Because the newer drive is faster but it doesn't mean that if there
were a PATA version of it that the SATA would be quicker - the whole
****ing point of my post.

I think you're working overtime to resist normal performance enhancements
that have been part of the PC technology evolution for the past 20+ years
; ) Nobody's making you give up your old technology. So give it a rest!

Hardly. I'm running cutting edge stuff here.

 

[Guest]

Nobody is "forcing" you to upgrade to SATA. You can still buy boards that
will support 4 PATA devices -- as I did.

PCI slots are a separate issue. More functions have been provided on the MB
negating the necessity of separate PCI boards. Use to be you needed slots
for network cards, modems, sound cards, 1394 ports, etc., etc. Also USB
ports have replaced many dedicated interface cards. But I do tend to agree
that they've gone too far. My MB has 2 standard PCI slots but one is
unusable because the fan on the video card blocks it. Luckily, I'm satisfied
with the onboard sound. I use the one accessible PCI slot for a wireless
card so I'm maxed out.

I'm beginning to wonder if usenet is anything more than a bunch of
horribly myopic idiots who bend over and bark every time greedy
corporations tell them to. Hey, my system is good enough for me,
so it must be good enough for everyone (or most everyone) else.

The fact is, Microsoft have made no secret about their intentions,
their design specs and roadmaps. The fact is, their intention is to
eliminate end user expansions and upgrades for PCs. The fact is,
the last several years have seen one new and completely
unnecessary hardware standard after another foisted upon us,
the sole purpose of which was to simply extort more revenue for
these corporations. SATA, PCI-E, DDR2, and on and on, none
of which were (or are) necessary for doing the things the vast
majority of us do with computers.

Here's a little bit of my own myopia: I have high-end PCI cards
ranging from a $500 audio card to an $800 video capture card
to a $1000 SCSI RAID card, and unless a motherboard has at
least four standard PCI slots, "upgrading" isn't even an option.
I've been stocking up on motherboards which were produced
before this unchecked greed started (e.g. Abit IC7-G's, Asus
P5E's etc) and will be happily expanding my systems long after
y'all are taking whatever crap hardware Microsoft and PC
manufacturers force you to have.

 

[Guest]

I've been stocking up on motherboards which were produced
before this unchecked greed started (e.g. Abit IC7-G's, Asus
P5E's etc)

I meant P4E's.

 

[johns]

  So why are they doing this?

Maybe here's a clue. When SATA first came
out, it was not intended to be used as a primary
boot drive for the OS. The C-drive was to remain
the default, and was generally assigned by the
BIOS to the primary IDE slot. That meant, if you
wanted to use a much faster SATA as a primary
boot drive, you could not put anything in the
primary IDE slot. You could only use the secondary
IDE slot ... which, at the time, was needed for
CD-drives. Only then would an XP install see
the SATA as the C-drive ... and only if the SATA
drivers were loaded ( F6 in the XP install ). Many
people never knew that, and generated conflicts
and unstable systems by using both IDE slots,
and forcing the SATA to C: after the install.
Later on, I began to notice the single IDE slot.
I think that the newer BIOSes dropped the default
boot to primary IDE, and now you can use it
as you like. But nobody is going to have more
than 2 IDE devices in a modern system, so no
reason for 2 slots which would handle 4 IDE
devices set to Master-Slave. I never understood
why the early SATA drives were not meant to
be boot drives. Weird.

johns

 

[Matt]

Which is exactly why I bought a MB with SATA AND PATA connection.

Well, good---and just how many IDE devices can you run? Two optical
drives and an IDE drive?

But the term "adequate" is subjective. A 1970s era unairconditioned sedan
is "adequate" to transport me in southern Arizona but my 2007 sedan does a
much better job ; )

You seem to be intentionally missing the point.

 

[The Henchman]

news:[email protected]...

and will be happily expanding my systems long after

y'all are taking whatever crap hardware Microsoft and PC
manufacturers force you to have.

You go ahead and do that now. Tell us how that works out in a couple of
years will ya?

Technology timing is just as bad as stock market timing. You lose 95% of
the time you try to "time" entry.