ATA 100 or ATA 133? - Page 2 - Tech Support Forums

Winos2Mac · November 16th, 2002, 05:48 PM

So when can we expect Serial ATA to outperform ATA/100 or ATA/133? When is the PCI bus going to get updated?

FalcomPSX · November 16th, 2002, 05:53 PM

serial ATA will outperform ATA100/133 when Hard drives get faster, the drive itself is the bottleneck right now.

and sechs, sorry if I came across as hard headed, I mainly wanted to point out the warranty issue on the drive, as IMO that point alone warrants it's purchase over any other drive right now. Performance wise, you are right the average user wont' notice the difference, but it is a bit faster all around.

Winos2Mac · November 16th, 2002, 05:57 PM

So the PCI bus is not a bottleneck? So If I purchase a board with Onboard Serial Ata I should be able to use future drives over 200MB/sec? in the next few years i mean?

sechs · November 16th, 2002, 06:01 PM

On paper, ATA drives should meet the 150MB/s barrier round about the time SATA is supposed to make 300MB/s per channel.

All they plan on doing is keeping the areal density going up the way that it already is. They are just starting to talk about 10k rpm drives, but that won't affect throughput nearly as much as increasing the data density.

PS: If you want great performance with a three year warranty, buy an IBM drive!

FalcomPSX · November 16th, 2002, 06:02 PM

well the PCI bus is a bottleneck at 133MB/sec but if drives aren't faster, even a faster PCI bus with SATA won't make your drive any faster. A faster PCI bus, or replacement or something should be coming I'd think sometime somewhat soon, as PCI is getting quite dated, it's been around since 486's after all.

Winos2Mac · November 16th, 2002, 06:04 PM

I was thinking about buying either the Asus A7V8x or A7N8x because of SATA but the only thing holding me back is waiting for the Hammer to be released.

I was under the impression that I would have to wait a while for new boards to come out that would support SATA at those high transfer speeds.

FalcomPSX · November 16th, 2002, 06:05 PM

IBM drives are fast, didn't know they still have a 3 year warranty, but they have been given a nickname of IBM Deathstar's for nothing. IBM themselves issued a notice(sorry, don't have a link) about the many failures they were having and said if you use the drive more then 11 hours a day or 33 hours a month, the drive may fail prematurely and this failure is NOT covered under their warranty. Of course, if you don't tell them you had it on 24/7 they will probably replace it, but personally I don't like IBM too much. Fast drives though.

sechs · November 16th, 2002, 06:12 PM

While IBM has, in fact, rated certain drives for less than 24/7 use, they have also said that amount of use will have no effect on the warranty. If it fails within three years, they will replace it. As long as you didn't misuse it, it doesn't matter.

FalcomPSX · November 16th, 2002, 06:16 PM

is that so, well I stand corrected.

I still don't like the fact they aren't rated for 24/7 use but then again WD's probably aren't either they just don't say it outright like IBM does.

sechs · November 16th, 2002, 06:23 PM

Drives earlier than than the 120GXP were meant more as desktop than server drives. Desktops aren't on and in use all of the time; workstations and servers, on the other hand, tend to be.

For those drive manufacurers moving to one-year warranties, the workstation and server drives are the ones remaining with three-year warranties. They tend to have higher performance, which power users, like myself, look for; but isn't necessary for the average joe.

Basically, you get what you pay for.