HDD compatibilty

[clonesauce]

What's suggested for an AMD athlon XP 1.6ghz? A SATA HDD or ATA HDD?

[jondercik]

sata

[clonesauce]

Oh ok thanks! Could you explain a little bit further why?

[nmX.Memnoch]

First, make sure your motherboard will support a SATA hard drive.

The reason for choosing SATA is because of the higher (theoretical) throughput and the easier to route cables. They also contain other technology that help to make them faster than a PATA drive (NCQ, TCQ, etc)...however, these technologies usually require that the SATA controller also support them before you'll see any benefit.

[clonesauce]

How do I tell if my motherboard could support SATA drives? Unfortunately, I left my PC somewhere else since I went on vacation.

[big poppa pump]

It makes no **** difference if you use a sata hdd or a pata hdd. The throughput is just about the same on both of them ATM.

[LLXX]

It makes no **** difference if you use a sata hdd or a pata hdd. The throughput is just about the same on both of them ATM.

Because the ultimate limit is how fast the data is read or written to/from the disk platters, which spin at the same speed on sata or pata hdds. This limit is much lower than that of the interface itself.

[nmX.Memnoch]

That's why I said theoretical throughput. The thinner SATA cables are much easier to route and can be much longer than that of PATA cables (not an issue in most computer cases though). I know I'll take my 10K RPM Raptors over a 7200 RPM PATA drive any day.

clonesauce, you can tell by looking up the specs on the motherboard. Do you know the manufacturer and model number?

[clonesauce]

Well, as I've said, I'm on vacation, but I remember it's on the P- series of ASUS. Are ATA HDDs compatible with most mobos?

[nmX.Memnoch]

Yes, a Parallel ATA drive will be compatible with your system.