SATA and IDE disc drives

[Joe]

One of my PCs has an IDE HDD connected to a SATA socket, not by me. It seems to work fine. If it's OK for the main hard disk such an arrangement shouldn't have any problems with a comparatively lightly-used and slow optical drive.

I've got a USB DVD drive as well. The one in my main lap-top went to glory and this was the cheapest way 'round it. It's also useful for my netbook which hasn't got one at all.

— Joe

[Refugee]

I can't understand how an IDE drive can plug into a SATA port unless it had a powered adapter between it and the motherboard.
Hard drives with both SATA and IDE interfaces are rare but I am sure I have seen one.

[Keithstv]

Some early SATA drives had dual SATA and IDE power connectors but I don't know of any with a dual SATA & IDE data connections.

Keith

[Joe]

Further to my Post 31:-

       
— Joe

[Mark Hennessy]

It looks like a SATA to IDE bridge is built in to the HDD end of the cable. Neat

[Joe]

As I said, I didn't install it so don't know anything about it; I've only ever dealt with IDE.

Had I been fitting the drive it would have shared the single IDE cable with the DVD drive.

All interesting stuff and completely off-topic, not that that's ever bothered us.

— Joe

[Mark Hennessy]

The trouble with 2 devices on one IDE cable is that everything slows down to the speed of the slowest device. And of course, only one device can be addressed at a time. And there are combinations of devices that simply don't work together on the same cable, however you mess about with the links. Honestly, sharing an IDE port is a "last resort" thing. What you have is much better, providing the adaptor remains reliable.

The SATA interface is faster than IDE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA...ther_buses

Modern discs are much faster than older ones. Much of the improvements come about from the increased cache memory on the controllers - coupled with the fact that the interface can access that cache much more quickly. Of course, the greater density, meaning more bits per tack, really helps. What hasn't really altered is the track-to-track seek times, which is why caching is so important. In short, treat yourself to a new SATA drive sometime - even second-hand - and I think you might be impressed...

Should I split off the SATA/IDE posts into a new thread?

[ppppenguin]

Modern discs are much faster than older ones. Much of the improvements come about from the increased cache memory on the controllers - coupled with the fact that the interface can access that cache much more quickly. Of course, the greater density, meaning more bits per tack, really helps. What hasn't really altered is the track-to-track seek times, which is why caching is so important. In short, treat yourself to a new SATA drive sometime - even second-hand - and I think you might be impressed...

Or even splash out on a solid state disk. Seek time is essentially zero.

Probably not the latest design or best value but my Crucial MX100 512GB drives were I think, under £150 each. Expensive compared to ordinary spinning rust but fast and high quality. Alas, almost a year on, I still haven't finally commissioned the PC they're used in.

[Joe]

Good idea re the split, Mark.

I've got a CD-RW drive that is very anti-social and won't share a cable with anything.

The computer I'm typing this on is SATA. Everything else is pretty primitive though.

My computing needs aren't demanding, most of the time it's sat waiting for me to do something. I don't play games, though was playing Alley Cat from 1984 in DOSBox under Linux yesterday, or use video-streaming sites other than YouTube. Even stuff on the BBC i-Player gets down-loaded first.

By the way, I only de-commissioned (and I use that word advisedly as I didn't scarp it) my old Amstard PC1512 about three years ago. During its final years it had no hard disk at all and a third-height 3½" floppy mounted on a bit of old central heating boiler poking out of the front. The printer was kept going on a cocktail of fountain pen ink and WD-40.

— Joe

[Joe]

Crucial MX100 512GB drives were I think, under £150 each.