Quick Questions: IDE (SCSI) vs SATA and SATA2

1) Are IDE/SCSI hard drive outdated technology? (sorry if I am using
the wrong terminology... is it EIDE?)

2) Is SATA faster or better in some way, how?

3) How much better / faster / more expensive is SATA 2?

4) Is it better to use one in particular of these configurations for
Windows - if so which one and why?

5) My Bios / Asrock motherboard configuration has a strange pecularity:
If shut down by power-off (bad way to shut down) it 'forgets' to look
first at the SATA drive for Windows (as it was set up to do). So when I
used to have the OS on a SATA drive and powered down in this way, I
always had to start next session on the PC by going into Bios and
changing the default Boot hard drive from the IDE/SCSI hard drive to the
SATA drive where Windows was! Extremely irritating - nothing seemed to
stop this from happening. Recently when I had some problem and had to
re-install the OS, I decided to put it on the old IDE/SCSI drive, just
so I wouldn't have to waste time on going into the BIOS on a regular
basis. But what caused this behaviour in the first place? Anything I
could have done to fix it?

On Sun, 12 Aug 2007 11:36:23 -0700, Cordelia <spam@spam.org>
wrote:

>1) Are IDE/SCSI hard drive outdated technology? (sorry if I am using
>the wrong terminology... is it EIDE?)

"Outdated" is a bit of an arbitrary term. You have a need,
a system that can or can't support IDE/SCSI, the most common
being PATA or commonly called ATA100 or ATA133, and devices
available to use these interfaces which do the job fine.

On the other hand since SATA is newer and eventually
production of PATA will slow down quite a bit (IIRC, Seagate
has already planned to stop producing PATA hard drives soon)
limiting your PATA product choices and possibly raising
prices.


>
>2) Is SATA faster or better in some way, how?

The SATA connector is more fragile, but the cable thinner
and easier to route, due to it's thinness and that there is
only one device per cable.

SATA has the potential to be significantly faster, but
current single drives cannot transfer the data from the
platter to the bus even as fast as ATA133, so the primary
improvement is a small increase from transfers to/fro the
HDDs onboard memory cache.



>
>3) How much better / faster / more expensive is SATA 2?

Minimal if any addt'l expense, barely any faster, but it is
current technology and should have the longest forward
support of the 3 low-cost common desktop/PC drive
interfaces.


>
>4) Is it better to use one in particular of these configurations for
>Windows - if so which one and why?

No, windows has nothing to do with it really. Millions of
systems prove any of them will do the job acceptibly... but
since SATA2 has both low cost and good forward-looking
availability, it should be the preferred interface for a new
system built today.


>
>5) My Bios / Asrock motherboard configuration has a strange pecularity:
>If shut down by power-off (bad way to shut down) it 'forgets' to look
>first at the SATA drive for Windows (as it was set up to do). So when I
>used to have the OS on a SATA drive and powered down in this way, I
>always had to start next session on the PC by going into Bios and
>changing the default Boot hard drive from the IDE/SCSI hard drive to the
>SATA drive where Windows was! Extremely irritating - nothing seemed to
>stop this from happening.

Consider it an unusual bios bug. The bios is supposed to
allow you to choose the preferred and/or boot order for the
device you want, and store that setting saved to nonvolatile
memory. When the system is next reset or turned on, it
should be booting to it. You might occasionally check
Asrock's website to see if they have (Or ever do) come up
with a bios update that fixes this... and also recheck your
bios settings just in case you had overlooked some setting
that might resolve it.


>Recently when I had some problem and had to
>re-install the OS, I decided to put it on the old IDE/SCSI drive, just
>so I wouldn't have to waste time on going into the BIOS on a regular
>basis. But what caused this behaviour in the first place? Anything I
>could have done to fix it?

See above.

Whether any particular PATA or SATA drive you have is a
better choice than the other, might depend more on the
inherant performance of the drive due to it's age and
capacity far more than which interface it uses.

Since you described the PATA drive as "old", it is likely
smaller and slower due to it's age and so the remaining
question is whether you find it to be too small or too slow
for your particular uses. Plenty of people do keep their
older drive for the OS and add a newer and (usually) faster
drive for addt'l storage. Only you can decide when the
older drive performance is comparitively low enough that it
is important to replace it or exchange the roles of the
two... or buy another drive since relying on an "old" drive
to run the OS or store data becomes a risk since no drive
lasts forever... while it's good to make frequent backups
regardless of drive age, having a drive fail at an
inconvenient time and interrupt use of the system can be
more of a hassle than it's worth when drives today are so
inexpensive for moderate capacity models.

That answers all my questions really clearly! Thank you so much for
explaining! It would have taken me ages to locate all this information
in books and online. (You *really* know your stuff and you are good at
explaining. Do you every think about that you could launch a website or
podcast and become a hit online any day! :-) C.

kony wrote:
> On Sun, 12 Aug 2007 11:36:23 -0700, Cordelia <spam@spam.org>
> wrote:
>
>> 1) Are IDE/SCSI hard drive outdated technology? (sorry if I am using
>> the wrong terminology... is it EIDE?)
>
> "Outdated" is a bit of an arbitrary term. You have a need,
> a system that can or can't support IDE/SCSI, the most common
> being PATA or commonly called ATA100 or ATA133, and devices
> available to use these interfaces which do the job fine.
>
> On the other hand since SATA is newer and eventually
> production of PATA will slow down quite a bit (IIRC, Seagate
> has already planned to stop producing PATA hard drives soon)
> limiting your PATA product choices and possibly raising
> prices.
>
>
>> 2) Is SATA faster or better in some way, how?
>
> The SATA connector is more fragile, but the cable thinner
> and easier to route, due to it's thinness and that there is
> only one device per cable.
>
> SATA has the potential to be significantly faster, but
> current single drives cannot transfer the data from the
> platter to the bus even as fast as ATA133, so the primary
> improvement is a small increase from transfers to/fro the
> HDDs onboard memory cache.
>
>
>
>> 3) How much better / faster / more expensive is SATA 2?
>
> Minimal if any addt'l expense, barely any faster, but it is
> current technology and should have the longest forward
> support of the 3 low-cost common desktop/PC drive
> interfaces.
>
>
>> 4) Is it better to use one in particular of these configurations for
>> Windows - if so which one and why?
>
> No, windows has nothing to do with it really. Millions of
> systems prove any of them will do the job acceptibly... but
> since SATA2 has both low cost and good forward-looking
> availability, it should be the preferred interface for a new
> system built today.
>
>
>> 5) My Bios / Asrock motherboard configuration has a strange pecularity:
>> If shut down by power-off (bad way to shut down) it 'forgets' to look
>> first at the SATA drive for Windows (as it was set up to do). So when I
>> used to have the OS on a SATA drive and powered down in this way, I
>> always had to start next session on the PC by going into Bios and
>> changing the default Boot hard drive from the IDE/SCSI hard drive to the
>> SATA drive where Windows was! Extremely irritating - nothing seemed to
>> stop this from happening.
>
> Consider it an unusual bios bug. The bios is supposed to
> allow you to choose the preferred and/or boot order for the
> device you want, and store that setting saved to nonvolatile
> memory. When the system is next reset or turned on, it
> should be booting to it. You might occasionally check
> Asrock's website to see if they have (Or ever do) come up
> with a bios update that fixes this... and also recheck your
> bios settings just in case you had overlooked some setting
> that might resolve it.
>
>
>> Recently when I had some problem and had to
>> re-install the OS, I decided to put it on the old IDE/SCSI drive, just
>> so I wouldn't have to waste time on going into the BIOS on a regular
>> basis. But what caused this behaviour in the first place? Anything I
>> could have done to fix it?
>
> See above.
>
> Whether any particular PATA or SATA drive you have is a
> better choice than the other, might depend more on the
> inherant performance of the drive due to it's age and
> capacity far more than which interface it uses.
>
> Since you described the PATA drive as "old", it is likely
> smaller and slower due to it's age and so the remaining
> question is whether you find it to be too small or too slow
> for your particular uses. Plenty of people do keep their
> older drive for the OS and add a newer and (usually) faster
> drive for addt'l storage. Only you can decide when the
> older drive performance is comparitively low enough that it
> is important to replace it or exchange the roles of the
> two... or buy another drive since relying on an "old" drive
> to run the OS or store data becomes a risk since no drive
> lasts forever... while it's good to make frequent backups
> regardless of drive age, having a drive fail at an
> inconvenient time and interrupt use of the system can be
> more of a hassle than it's worth when drives today are so
> inexpensive for moderate capacity models.