SATA or ATA 133???

[Will Nave]

Is the speed difference between SATA and ATA/133 really that noticeable? Is it worth buying a PCI card to upgrade your current board to handle SATA, or should a person just stick with ATA/133? I personally have been using ATA/133 and would like some feedback from people who have delved into the world of SATA to influence my decision to upgrade to a 80GB SATA WD Special Edition from my current 80GB ATA/133 WD Special Edition...

 

[Rob Williams]

If you want the best performance, I would go for SATA. Especially if you have a RAID 0 setup, you would notice a good difference from regular ATA/133.

It would depend on what you are using it for though. File transfer would be much faster, especially if you were using the faster 10,000RPM drives. Game load times and file transfers would be better under SATA in my opinion though.

 

[brettmar]

The difference really is noticeable for me. I use 3 Maxtor Diamondmax 9 and 10 SATA drives (2 @ raid 0) and a WD Raptor 10krpm drive. Damn, they blow my Pata out of the water.

 

[Rob Williams]

That's quite the set up you have. I am still one of the peeps without a Raptor drive, but I am waiting to upgrade my whole mobo first I think.

 

[Anonymous]

Raptors are fast, but just a little faster than the Diamondmax Maxtor series. You save a lot using those drives. Either way, the raptors make good drives too.

 

[Nosebiter]

I have two 10k rpm 74gig raptors in a Raid 0. Decent storage size, but insanely fast performance. I've been a RAID guy for a long time, and I was a SCSI guy before that. Until I see an affordable direct memory linked SCSI RAID onboard a mobo, i'll stick with the sata raids.