IDE and SATA HDD

83fly · **12th April 2007, 11:10 AM**

Hi guys,

I'm needing to get a new motherboard and all the decent ones that I'm looking at only come with 1 IDE connector (which I'l assume they intend for the optical drives).

My 250 and 300 Gb drives are both IDE so I may be getting a SATA drive if I have to.

1. Could I run an IDE and SATA drive at the same time, and if so, is there a preference as to which should be the main drive?

And,

2. Is SATA a better drive performance wise? Does it score higher in Vista I suppose?

The only differnece that I know about the two is that SATA has a smaller cable for better airflow, so any help, as always, is greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Brett

scottsos · **12th April 2007, 11:23 AM**

1. Yep you can run SATA and IDE at the same time. I have a 40Gb IDE and a 200Gb SATA. I would recommend running the IDE as the main drive as you will have less issues this way.

2. SATA II has more bandwidth than IDE but the same spec disks should have the same performance reguardless of if they are IDE or SATA. Performance may be lower if you chain two IDE devices together.

Another option would be to get some IDE to SATA converters and use your existing disks. I use a few in my standard PC without any issues.

83fly · **12th April 2007, 12:30 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by scottsos

Another option would be to get some IDE to SATA converters and use your existing disks. I use a few in my standard PC without any issues.

Cheers scottsos,

Thanks alot for that info, very helpful indeed. How much are those converters roughly?

Brett

scottsos · **12th April 2007, 01:13 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by 83fly

How much are those converters roughly?

Brett

Around $20 to $45 dollars. http://www.staticice.com.au/cgi-bin/...e+sata+convert

Also there are heaps on ebay

Be careful because some stick out of the back of the drive a long way and may not fit in some cases. Also it does add an extra step to disk read/write so may or may not affect performance, I have not noticed any but I am not using these converters in my mce rig.

dmagerl · **13th April 2007, 12:23 AM**

Make sure your motherboard bios is set to ahci mode, or similar. Having the mobo set to ide, or compatibility mode doesnt really get you any performance improvements.

For XP you have to load the ahci drivers at system install time because XP is lacking the ahci drivers. The drivers have to be downloaded from you mobo's manufacturer. I believe the drivers are included as part of vista but you may not be able to swtich between ide compatibility mode or ahci mode without reloading vista. I've never tried that.

One more thing, if the mobo is only sata I compatible, there should be a jumper on the drive to force it into sata I mode. Otherwise, make sure that jumper isnt installed.

-dickm