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It's been a few months since my last time in a PC store - let alone looking
at new hardware to upgrade my system - but what is the rush to move from
E-IDE to SATA suddenly? What really are the benefits and is it worth a
brand new motherboard (along with new video card, RAM, HDDs, DVD burner,
etc.) just to get away from E-IDE?

--
Kyle )

"I reject your reality and substitute my own!"

"Kyle )" <> wrote in message
news: ...
> It's been a few months since my last time in a PC store - let alone
> looking at new hardware to upgrade my system - but what is the rush to
> move from E-IDE to SATA suddenly? What really are the benefits and is it
> worth a brand new motherboard (along with new video card, RAM, HDDs, DVD
> burner, etc.) just to get away from E-IDE?
Two of the main benifits are faster transfer speed and easier connectivity.
The first generation of SATA has a "theoritical" speed of 150 MB/s, for
SATA2 it's about 300. IDE had a transfer speed of what? 66 MB/s?
SATA drives each have their own seperate connection to the motherboard using
a much thinner cable than the ribbon type IDE cables allowing for better
airflow in the case. With IDE when connecting more than one drive, the
drives had to be configured as master/slave. No such configuration is
necessary with SATA.
As far as upgrading your motherboard, SATA has been around for about 4 years
or so. So if your motherboard doesn't support sata it probably doesn't also
support later generations of processors, video cards etc. However, only you
can decide if it's time for an upgrade. If everything is working fine with
what you've got there's probably no need for an upgrade.
>

> --
> Kyle )
>
> "I reject your reality and substitute my own!"
>

Kyle ) wrote:
> It's been a few months since my last time in a PC store - let alone looking
> at new hardware to upgrade my system - but what is the rush to move from
> E-IDE to SATA suddenly? What really are the benefits and is it worth a
> brand new motherboard (along with new video card, RAM, HDDs, DVD burner,
> etc.) just to get away from E-IDE?
>

Or you buy a SATA controller card:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...roller&x=0&y=0

Kyle ) wrote:

> It's been a few months since my last time in a PC store - let alone
> looking at new hardware to upgrade my system - but what is the rush to
> move from
> E-IDE to SATA suddenly? What really are the benefits and is it worth a
> brand new motherboard (along with new video card, RAM, HDDs, DVD burner,
> etc.) just to get away from E-IDE?
>
SATA is a bit more end consumer friendly - no hassle with master-slave or
cable select jumpers, cable length, "open tails" and hf reflection, and
last but not least blocking airflows by broad cables.
Transfer speeds are 100/133 MB/s for IDE UDMA5/6 modes, and 150/300MB/s for
SATA1/2, but platterns only deliver 50 ... 70MB/s so that's not a real
issue.