Should I upgrade from IDE to SATA?

[paddybliss]

Will upgrading to a SATA drive make any noticeable difference to the speed of my computer?

My spec is:

Elite RS480-M skt 939 motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Venice
2x 512mb Geil DDR PC3200
200gb Maxtor DiamondMax 10 (8mb cache) IDE
Windows XP SP2 (but considering upgrading to Vista)

It’s a bit of an old system, but I can’t afford to start again with a new motherboard, so am going to upgrade the processor to a Athlon 64 X2 3800 skt 939 while there are still some available. I was thinking about picking up a new Hard Drive while I’m at it as I’ve always wondered if having an IDE instead of SATA drive was causing a bottleneck? I do a lot of video compression / conversion etc, which certainly puts it through its paces!

I know this has been debated many times, but most of the discussions on I’ve found about this date back to 2004/5, so I want to ask this again taking into account advances in HDD technology since then, but also bearing in mind my motherboard is a few years old & only supports SATA 1.5 (as far as I can tell).

Would one of the drives below make a noticeable difference?

320GB Seagate ST3320620AS Barracuda 7200.10 SATA 16mb cache NCQ
320GB Samsung ND321KJ SpinPoint T166 SATA300 7200 rpm 16mb cache NCQ

As well as being SATA they have double the cache. I don’t need the storage, just looking for an improvement in the speed of my PC, but don’t want to spend another £50 unnecessarily.

Thanks in advance!

 

[ArizonaGeek]

You could keep one of your IDE drives for a OS drive and pick up a SATA 3.0 card and hard drive combo for a reasonable price. Check Ebay, in fact check out item 320218924533 you can get a very nice SATA 2 RAID card for about £15.50 which is really cheap. You may not need it now but at some point you might. Add that to about £50 for a 500 gig hard drive and you'd do ok. You can find SATA 2 PCI cards for half the price of that RAID card I suggested (but that card does RAID 0,1,5, and 10 - very nice!) it really depends on what you can afford to buy.

Cheers
Rob

The answer is always "PEBKAC!

 

[cdogg]

No, there's not enough difference between most IDE and SATA drives especially in an older system that might be running an old SATA spec connection.

However, buying a new drive can often show a boost in speed since the mechanical parts and lubricants moving inside are new and not worn. You would especially notice a difference after doing a clean install regardless if you replace the drive or not.


Back to SATA for a second...

There are features like NCQ (Native Command Queuing) that SATA drives have to offer that aren't found on IDE drives. NCQ speeds up the amount of time it takes to retrieve a set of data by grabbing it in the best possible order minimizing head movement. When transferring a large amount of data within an application or over to another drive, this can make a noticeable difference. So from this perspective, SATA definitely has its advantages. But as far as the mechanics are concerned, there is very little difference between the two.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Einstein
[tab][navy]For posting policies, click [/navy]here.

 

[cdogg]

Rob,
The Elite RS480-M has SATA already, but I don't believe it is the 3.0 version. Even so, I'm not sure it's worth more than $10 to upgrade it from an older version to 3.0

 

[paddybliss]

Thanks for the advice.

Would it be better to spend the money on more RAM? I need DDR, which is more expensive than DDR2 and 2G would be about £70. Can't afford RAM and the drive, so which would give me more speed?

 

[acewarlock]

Go for the RAM.




This is a Signature and not part of the answer, it appears on every reply.

This is an Analogy so don't take it personally as some have.

Why change the engine if all you need is to change the spark plugs.

 

[cdogg]

You've already got 1GB with the option of running in dual-channel mode. Upgrading RAM beyond 1GB will only make a little difference unless you do a lot of multitasking and keep a good number of apps open at once. In most cases, however, the difference probably won't show.

If I had to weigh the two options, I'd go with the hard drive. Get a 160GB SATA drive or larger with 16MB of cache. If you decide to get RAM instead for some reason, only upgrade to 2GB. The 32-bit version of XP doesn't make good use of RAM above 3GB, and going anywhere near that limit is pointless.


Also don't forget that a clean install of Windows will have the most impact overall. You might want to consider trying that before you spend any money at all...



~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Einstein
[tab][navy]For posting policies, click [/navy]here.

 

[paparazi]

The drive won't make much difference
As you already have a gig in dual channel more ram with XP won't make a deal of difference.
The CPU on the otherhand will make a considerable difference especially when number crunching. A dual core should make things quiet a bit quicker when compressing video etc.
I would however attempt to get something up the scale from the X2 3800.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/AMD-Athlon-64...yZ133682QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/AMD-64-X2-460...yZ133682QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/AMD-Athlon-64...yZ133682QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

A few ebay options
Martin

On wings like angels whispers sweet
my heart it feels a broken beat
Touched soul and hurt lay wounded deep
Brown eyes are lost afar and sleep

 

[paddybliss]

Well thats an even split between RAM and the Drive! Anymore takers....

I've put the processers on ebay on my watch list, but i'm a bit wary about buying secondhand stuff like that on ebay, unless it's an absolute bargain.

I did just see this advertised as new, which almost seems too good to be true:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/376639-B21-HP...goryZ172QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Though someone mentioned in the feedback that is Server Ram not Desktop, didn't know there was a difference?

 

[wahnula]

i'm a bit wary about buying secondhand stuff like that on ebay

Good for you. My personal experience is that eBay is not such a great marketplace for PC parts, more so for software titles, especially older ones. Many times their hardware is more expensive than Pricewatch shops.

If you can buy a new part from a reputable local dealer and its only a few p difference I can say you will get a better customer experience with an established merchant.

As for IDE vs SATA, the IDE pipe is so huge it's rarely saturated and thus a bottleneck, so unless you like the newer features like larger cache and higher areal density don't worry about it.

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[cdogg]

Well thats an even split between RAM and the Drive!

Nah, that doesn't count! AceWarlock didn't even explain his pick.



paddy,
You will find that answers only get more repetitive from this point on. Neither upgrade is going to impress you, and I find it odd that you haven't addressed the idea of a clean install...

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Einstein
[tab][navy]For posting policies, click [/navy]here.

 

[paddybliss]

Yes i will be doing a clean reinstall as part of a general spring clean.

I have a second partition on my existing drive that i was going to put Vista on with duel boot, but may just stick to second installation of XP (any problems with doing that?). I have dozens of utilities and apps on my current installation of XP and have lost some of the passwords etc, so i plan to move across slowly intalling as i need them but leaving the old instalation on a different partition just in case. I realise that having lots of programmes installed is going to be slowing it down, so i would expect some improvement from that, but still interested in upgrading hardware as well.

 

[paparazi]

I think if you study the feedback rating and communicate with the seller before bidding, there is nothing wrong with buying second user.
The main reason for pointing you in this direction is the rarity of NEW socket 939 CPU's and as long as they haven't been overclocked there shouldn't be any problem with a used part, but thats your choice.
The SPLIT in advice I'm afraid is a no brainer! I will simply say if it is a NOTICEABLE increase in performance then neither the ram or hard drive will provide it where as the faster dual core CPU will FACT!
The clean install is a very good place to start.

And this motherboard needs Non ECC memory (if you were intent on going that route) but as I say, not necessary and will result in little benefit!

Martin

On wings like angels whispers sweet
my heart it feels a broken beat
Touched soul and hurt lay wounded deep
Brown eyes are lost afar and sleep

 

[paddybliss]

I'll def go for a new CPU will monitor those ones on ebay, both of which claim not to be overclocked. Might pick up somr RAm there as well.

Thanks for all your help
Patrick