ide to sata adapter 2

[altepa]

I have a SATA drive connected as my main drive and just replaced a second drive I had that was under warranty.((Seagate was nice enough to replace the 160gb IDE I sent in with a 250gb IDE replacement))

Other than the smaller cable, are there any reason's I might want to use one of those IDE to SATA adapter's that plug into the HDD so as to have both drives connected to the SATA controller on the MB?? Instead of one SATA and one IDE.

If so, any suggestions as to a particular brand of adapter or are all about equal.

 

[kestrel1]

I would think they are all pretty much the same. Not tried any personally, but having looked at some there doesn't seem to be anything between them.

 

[RICHINMINN]

SATA hard drives are just a bit faster than most IDE hard drives. Unless it is specified otherwise, SATA moves data at 150 Mbps (Megabits per second), unless your SATA controller supports SATA3.0, in which case the data transfer rate is doubled (3.0 Mbps). Most IDE hard drives transfer data at 100 or 133 Mbps (ATA100 or ATA133). Hooking up an IDE to an SATA controller via an adapter will not speed up the hard drive to SATA speeds, so it will run at the same speed, no matter it is hooked up to an IDE controller or to an SATA controller.

One consideration might be whether the IDE hard drive is on the same IDE cable as an optical (CD-ROM, CD-R/RW, DVD-ROM, etc.) drive. If it is, then the hard drive is slowed down to the speed of the optical drive, which is commonly 33 Mbps. If this is the case, then it would be better to hook that hard drive up to an SATA controller via an adapter, and get some increased speed from it, and leave the optical drive on the IDE cable by itself.

RichinMinn

 

[altepa]

Thanks for the replies guys.

Reckon I'll leave it alone and not tinker with this one since my system is running ok.

If it ain't broke don't fix it surely applies in this case

 

[firewolfrl]

Not all IDE to SATA converters are the same

Some are real duds!

I finally found a one that works very well after 7 tries with different brands
Rosewill IDE Device to SATA Device Mini Vertical Bridge (for IDE device) Model RC204- Retail - Retail

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16812206002

I had to go this route as I only have one IDE controller and a 8 SATA connections and a whole bunch of large IDE drives
the side note I found it works great with my DVD burner



I do agree with the not tinkering when it works great...BUT...I just can't help myself....
TINKER TINKER
AND YES I have broke many the things that worked fine before I FIXED IT... expensive learning curve

LOL

as long as the SATA controller is loaded in windows before you convert to SATA it should work fine after you add the adapter

I have been running my system with six adapters for about 7 months now with no issues at all

 

[altepa]

Thanks for the info firewolfrl. I'll keep the link marked for future reference.

Sooner or later I will probably try this out. Like you I just can't help tinkering just to see if I can squeeze a bit more outta this 'puter.

I should have read the RMA page a bit closer when I returned the bad drive. I could have added $10 and received a SATA drive replacement instead of the IDE. BUT it might have been a 160 gig instead of the 250 they sent back.

I'm happy about the extra 90 gigs free so no complaints on my end

I have 4 SATA and 2 IDE connectors. So for now I'll leave well enough alone. ((that is till me tinkering bug starts itching me again lol)) Raid comes to mind in that department.

Again thanks for the heads up on the adapter

 

[firewolfrl]

Raid is ok
I kinda went away from raid to large single drives. If I didn't mirror I lost data (thats what happens when you use cheap crappy drives).
If I mirrored I mirrored my problems too
the only type of raid I like now is raid 5. paid $500 for a raid 5 card and I don't even use it now.

I found it's easier on the data to do backups and make a working bootable copy that backs up in incremental every other day.

I learned all this after the experience of sending 2 raid drives to a lab at the cheap cost of recovering pictures of a family dog that had just died. the pics were irreplacable the recovery lab was $3050 and the wife was happy to get the pics. and I was happy the wife was happy (lots easier on the marriage)

so I stick to one drive with copies

oh! oh! darn it....got bit by the TINKER BUG again

TINKER TINKER

 

[jurgen36]

Yes I can see all your points made. I to believe in multiple backups. But even that sometimes does not help too much. I always use two complete Raid 0 backups of my boot drive another raid 0. This is for speeding up the operations. However about two month ago my power supply decided to blow up with a big bang. It took the motherboard with it and also 3 drives. Unfortunately one drive in each of the arrays. So the result was I apparently lost all my files. I used the drive electronics from one of the good drives and changed the circuit board on a blown drive. That way I got one of the arrays working again. Mechanically the drives appeared to be ok. Anyway my biggest problem was to replace the power supply a 1200 watt unit. Well I finally found one on E-bay, unfortunately at quite a high price, I needed this power as I use 10 hard drives, they are all Seagate 320 Gbyte Sata.
Seagate was actually very good, I send an E-mail with the problems encountered and they forwarded an RMA notice straight away. I send the 3 drives off to their agents and received replacement drives within 5 days. I still stick to RAID 1 arrays but I back all up to a 1 Terrabyte USB drive.
Its actually very simple. I just start the XP installation then stop it at the first reboot. Start up with a very simple IDE drive, I then use Total commander to erase any traces of the new XP installation and rewrite the drive array from my USB backup. This seems to work much better and certainly much faster as the Acronics True Image Server I used before. The overwritten drive array always boots up ok.

So maybe this helps somebody in the future. Ok it uses a lot of drives, but drives are cheap now and so are controllers.

Regards

Jurgen