Buying a new SATA hard drive is confusing if you don't understand the differences between the various drive types. Which hard drive should you buy?
SATA Hard Drives (Serial ATA) are the most popular drives being sold today. Alongside them in the store however you will also find boxes labeled Parallel ATA or SCSI. So what are the differences between these hard drives and which one should you purchase? Your decision is dictated by what your computer can accept. Check with your computer's manufacturer to see which drive style you can use. Most newer computers purchased within the last two years accept SATA connections. If your computer cannot accept one of the newer SATA hard drives you can purchase SATA adaptor cardsthat plug into an empty expansion slot on your computer's motherboard. You can purchase SCSI adaptorsas well, so follow these tips to guide your decision.
SATA vs PATA: Serial ATA vs. Parallel ATA Drives
SATA hard drives have many benefits over their older cousin, the Parallel ATA drive. Chief among these differences are:
SATA hard drives are faster and perform much better than traditional ATA drives and are better for high bandwidth applications such as video editing and multiplayer gaming.
SATA drives use a smaller, cheaper cable to connect to the computer's motherboard. These cables can also be up to three feet in length compared to eighteen inches with Parallel ATA cables.
SATA hard drives can be hot swappable, meaning that they can be disconnected and reconnected without powering down the computer. There are limits to this of course. You should never disconnect your boot drive while the computer is operating.
SATA cables are easier to plug in without damaging the delicate connecting pins on the drive.
SCSI hard drives are the elders of the storage world. SCSI is one of the oldest specifications but it is also the fastest and thus has been widely used in network servers and other high speed, high bandwidth applications. Unfortunately this high speed storage has also meant much higher costs. SCSI drives were once standard in all Macintosh computers but have since been replaced by the cheaper SATA based hard drives.
SCSI drives are also hot swappable, similar to the SATA drives.
Some varieties of SCSI can be used with SATA
SCSI drives are often set up in a mirroring arrangment to allow for instant, continuous backups of the hard drives.
SCSI drives are still the most expensive drives on the consumer market.
Your basic rule of thumb should be to purchase a drive that is designed to work with your computer's motherboard. Try to avoid using SCSI adaptors or SATA adaptors unless absolutely necessary as the whole point of using a specific kind of hard drive is to get the most speed and storage for the money.
The copyright of the article SATA Hard Drive Buying Guide in Computer Drives/Storage is owned by Chad Criswell. Permission to republish SATA Hard Drive Buying Guide in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
pata is old technology sata is today generation we can say that sata is
advance technology
Nov 26, 2008 8:55 PM
Guest :
anyone know of an adapter to change a SATA drive to a PATA drive? admin@eternalwolf.net
Mar 1, 2009 7:33 PM
Guest :
SATA, ATA, SCSI are all obsolete except for the Terabyte SATAS.
one word. SOLID STATE HD's. <--- Great for a boot HD and main HD plus
can't compare speeds to the others.
Apr 13, 2009 8:02 PM
Guest :
what are you going to use a terabyte for ???? OVERKILL
Apr 20, 2009 9:27 PM
Guest :
so can a SATA be a solid state hd?
May 25, 2009 4:45 PM
Guest :
Can someone please highlight how do I know whether my desktop accepts USB
external hard disk?
thanks
Jun 21, 2009 12:39 AM
Guest :
Terabyte? Overkill?? Three words - Home HD Video!!! (or 4 year's worth of
10 MPx camera shots!)
Jun 24, 2009 3:13 AM
Guest :
To answer the first question, Do you have a USB connection? If so, your
desktop will accept the drive. I would recommend a USB 2.0 drive and
connector though,as the original USB is way too slow. Second
question...SATA can be solid state. SATA just means that it conforms to
the specifications for the connector. Terabyte = Overkill? I think not. I
store digital copies of my blu-ray movies and use it to play them on a big
screen. I have 4 terabyte drives that are almost full. (In the early 90's
they used to say that a 200 MB drive was overkill BTW.) Solid state drives
are nice, but have some serious limitations. Flash-memory cells can wear
out after 1,000 to 10,000 write cycles for MLC, and up to 100,000 write
cycles for SLC. Slower write speeds: As erase blocks on flash-based SSDs
generally are quite large (e.g. 0.5 - 1 megabyte)[18], they are far slower
than conventional disks during small writes (write amplification effect)
and can suffer from write fragmentation. Recent SSDs mitigate this problem
using large DRAM write buffers and intelligent controllers. Also, modern
copy-on-write or log-structured file systems (e.g., btrfs or NILFS) write
linearly to the disk, not triggering the write amplification effect. SSDs
based on DRAM, which do this several orders of magnitude faster than
conventional disks though, do not suffer from this problem. DRAM-based
SSDs require more power than hard disks, when operating; and they still use
power when the computer is turned off, while hard disks do not. They are
also significantly more expensive than mechanical drives. SSD is still
currently a developing technology. A January 2009 review of the market by
technology reviewer Tom's Hardware concluded that comparatively few of the
tested devices showed acceptable I/O performance, with several
disappointments.
Jul 11, 2009 8:13 AM
Guest :
New WINDOWS 7 has an automatic back up feature that copies the entire
desktop configuration as a compressed image file. 34GB of data
requires at least 3GB of free space to back up and recommended setting is
for a separate internal drive. Externals can be used but WINDOWS warns that
swapping the external to another system (portable music/gaming/video
storage use) can corrupt the back up data ini file. Great reason to
have a second drive inside.
Sep 4, 2009 7:17 AM
Guest :
In a few years you'll need a terrabyte to run your Windows bloatware.
There's no escaping it.
Oct 21, 2009 7:19 PM
Guest :
im having trouble finding a laptop with a SSD anyone have any suggestions
as to what brand/ make of laptop includes it?
Oct 29, 2009 6:34 PM
Guest :
I ORDERED A 250GB ATA/100 7200 RPM 8.9MS 8MG I RECIEVED A 250GB PATA /
8MG CACHE WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE
I WANT TO REPLACE THE
STOCK 80.0GB ULTRA DMA 5400 RPM
Aug 10, 2007
