[G4] SATA vs. ATA (was posting,please?)

[Jim Pacyga]

As for the upgrading...the SATA controller is $75 so it is cheap - if  
you have an older machine you are stretching out a bit, buying 250Gb  
parallel ATA drives is probably not a great investment if you think  
there might be a G5 somewhere in your future.

It depends on how long you want to keep the older machine around.

In terms of cost, a SATA drive isn't much more than a parallel ATA  
drive costs.  I picked up a 200Gb for 150.  A parallel WD drive on  
pricewatch is about $114.

My G4 is doing fine but either way to add drives I was looking at a PCI  
card, so I went with SATA v. parallel.

It is all up to your personal situation.

Jim

On 4 May 2004, at 18:47, Alex wrote:

>
> On Tuesday, May 4, 2004, at 20:55 Canada/Eastern, Al Poulin wrote:
>
>> [...] please describe the differences between SATA and ATA.
>
> ATA implemented over a serial (rather than parallel) interface.
>
> See the following links (roughly, in increasing order of complexity)
>
> <http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/storage/story/ 
> 0,10801,79769,00.html>
> <http://www.seagate.com/newsinfo/technology/sata/faq/index.html>
> <http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/storage/serialATA_FAQ.mspx>
> <http://www.smithdot.net/display.php? 
> category=hardware&article=intro_serialata.txt>
>
> I'm sure you'll find plenty more if you google it.
>
>> Can SATA drives run in Macs built for ATA?
>
> By adding a SATA card.
>
>> If I want to upgrade hard drives in my QuickSilver G4 733 in a couple  
>> years, will I need to install a new PCI card?
>
> A couple of years? I couldn't tell you what things are going to be  
> like in 6 months, much less in a couple of years. I suspect that  
> parallel ATA drives will still be available, because there is a huge  
> installed base for them. As a rule, I'm skeptical about the benefits  
> of upgrading computers older than 4 to 5 years; better to invest into  
> a more powerful new machine.
>
> f
>
>
>
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