IDE vs SATA advice

[Caifan]

I'll probably buy a new hard drive and remplace it for one of my current hard disks, I was checking the prices and I found out that an IDE 250GB cost me exactly the same as a 250GB SATA 300 MB/s, I'm mostly looking for information and/or orientation about whats best for my current PC configuration.

Abit IC7-MAX3 (supports Serial ATA)
Pentium4 @ 3.2Ghz
4 Kingston 512 MB sticks
2 Western Digital 80GB IDE HD

My question is, would a 250GB SATA HD work with my current 80GB IDE HD, I dont plan on using a RAID setup or anything, I would like to install Windows Vista in the SATA hd and have it as main and use the IDE hd as secondary disk to keep some of my backup files.

What do you recommend me to do? should I buy the SATA or the IDE 250GB hd?

 

[LinkedKube]

wow I had this problem when I started building pc's 7 months ago. IDE to SATA can show a big difference in performance depending on the rpm on the drive. I do recommend upgrading to sata or if you dont want to spend that much money you can you buy an ide to sata converter. I bought mine from newegg for 13 usd. Although this will help you it still will not be as fast as a direct sata connection, if you're looking for performance above anything upgrade to sata, if it doesnt bother you much then you might be fine where you are.

 

[Rayss523]

SATA is easier to install and better for airflow through the case because it doesn't use a giant ribbon cable. I myself am using a Seagate 750GB Sata HD with a WD 150GB IDE HD and a Maxtor 80GB IDE HD, it works fine. And the seagate feels like a bottomless pit that I can just keep throwing files into without being concerned about filling it up

 

[LinkedKube]

yeah but that's a huge seagate, i wouldnt buy anything that big unless i had 250 movies. performance wise for seek time he's better off going with a small drive with 7200 rpm or better.

 

[tipstir]

7200 RPMs pretty fast, there are suppose to be 10,000 RPMs HDDs but I wouldn't buy anything now that's less than 500GB even though you can get 750GB for about $100 more. You'll never have enough space as 320GB does fill up so quickly you'll be shocked!

SATA 150/300 are faster than UATA or PATA 133 even with 16MB 4-way Cache.

 

[=met=Badger]

if your buying a new HDD go for SATA. on Winxp install and formatting times its roughly 1/3 of IDE or PATA . going SATA will amaze you if your used to IDE. and as for the 750gb if your have around $300 to throw into it go for it, even at 7200rpm the perpendicular drives can match the 10000rpm parallels for speed. and the sheer size of a 750 may seem big when defraging/formatting/seeking but its worth it when you NEVER have to buy storage space again; or atleast for a few years.