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adding SATA to a non-SATA motherboard

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Carol Haynes:
If it is an internal drive is it realistically going to be hot swappable anyway?

There are loads of PATA > SATA and SATA > PATA converters out there usually in the form of a small PCB that fits between the mobo/PCI connector and the drive connector. Some will even let you use ATAPI CD/DVD drives on a SATA interface! They aren't cheap though - it is probably nearly as cheap to buy a new drive in the format you want.

If you just want more disc space why not upgrade an existing drive - there are huge ATA drives out there now that are really cheap - alternatively use a USB 2 external drive (I have a Seagate 400Gb which is really excellent - and hot swapable).

f0dder:
PCI sata adapters are dirt cheap these days, unless you want a zillion ports or raid5... their main disadvantage is that the PCI bus is limited to 133MB/s (iirc), but that's not really a problem until you try to do sound, gigabit networking and a hefty RAID at the same time - single drive sustained rate is, what, 50MB/s or so.

Getting a SATA drive + pci controller is smarter than an IDE disk... you can re-use the drive in a new box, sata has command queing, and the connectors are nicer and smaller, which allows for better airflow.

Hotplug probably won't be supported, but who needs that anyway? :)

superticker:
if you have a 5yr old motherboard, perhaps the answer is to buy a new motherboard (or new computer?).  I realize that's easy to say and not so easy to afford, but at some point trying to upgrade these things is more trouble than its worth..
-mouser (December 20, 2006, 12:52 PM)
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Argh, I think you're right.-superboyac (December 20, 2006, 05:35 PM)
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I agree.  If you're going to buy a new disk, I would indeed get a SATA drive.  But in addition to that, I would replace my motherboard with one which had a SATA interface as well as a PCI Express graphics interface.  That means buying a new PCI Express graphics adaptor that's compatible with Vista.  You can still keep Windows XP, although if you plan to upgrade to Vista, I would do so when you replace the disk drive.

The only thing that is important and lacking from my system right now is a robust backup method, which is why I'm splurging on the two 500GB hard drives.
-superboyac (December 20, 2006, 05:35 PM)
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Now that's a whole different issue.  If you're looking for a backup disk, I would buy an external drive with an "eSATA" interface.  This will have a little different connector than the standard "internal" SATA connector to facilitate better shielding for longer cable length.

When buying an external drive, if you're a computer professional, I wouldn't fool around.  Get something like the G-Drive, which has everything: Aluminum case, no fan, eSATA, 400 & 800MHz Firewire, and USB 2.0.  Of course, the eSATA connection will be the fastest followed by the Firewire connections.  Here's an example source: http://www.academicsuperstore.com/market/marketdisp.html?PartNo=752728

If you're not a computer professional, getting an external drive with only an eSATA and USB interface would be good enough.  If it's a high performance disk (e.g. it gets hot), I would still shoot for the aluminum case w/o the internal fan.  Slow (cool) drives can be put in plastic cases.

The G-Drive I mentioned above allows air to circulate both above and below it so it's cooled on both sides.  That's what you want to shop for if you're buying a high performace (runs hot) drive.  Most people may be happier with a slower, cooler-running drive though.

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