SATA Hard Drives

I'm about to tackle my first addition of a SATA drive. I think I read somewhere that
SATA drives do not have Master - Slave, only CS. If true, how do I designate which
is to be the boot drive?

Also, appears that SATA data cables permit only one drive per cable?

Power, the one SATA drive I examined appears to be able to accept an old type
power cable or a newer type power cable?

Other tips and recommendations appreciated.

Earl

"Earl Partridge" <earlpNG@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ey5xQYtDJHA.3904@xxxxxx
I'm about to tackle my first addition of a SATA drive. I think I read
somewhere that
SATA drives do not have Master - Slave, only CS. If true, how do I
designate which
is to be the boot drive?

Also, appears that SATA data cables permit only one drive per cable?

Power, the one SATA drive I examined appears to be able to accept an old
type
power cable or a newer type power cable?

Other tips and recommendations appreciated.

Earl


There are no jumpers or settings to select, on a sata hard drive. Just plug
it in.
The drive, you install Vista on, will become your boot drive. Alternatively,
most bios will allow you to go in, and designate the hard drive boot
priority.

Yes, only one data cable per drive.

Many sata drives, still offer the older power connector, in addition to the
newer sata power connector, for backwards compatibility. You can use either
one. If your power supply has sata power connectors, I would go ahead and
just use those.





--
Don

The boot drive is specified in the BIOS.

SATA controllers can run two drives but each has a separate data connection on the motherboard or controller card. Note the connection numbers on the motherboard. A SATA data cable connects only one drive to the motherboard.

Most new drives will only accept the new SATA power connector, but there are still some which can accept also the older Molex power connector. Connect only one, if you have the option of either.

"Earl Partridge" <earlpNG@xxxxxx> wrote in message news:ey5xQYtDJHA.3904@xxxxxx
I'm about to tackle my first addition of a SATA drive. I think I read somewhere that
SATA drives do not have Master - Slave, only CS. If true, how do I designate which
is to be the boot drive?

Also, appears that SATA data cables permit only one drive per cable?

Power, the one SATA drive I examined appears to be able to accept an old type
power cable or a newer type power cable?

Other tips and recommendations appreciated.

Earl

As Dominic said, the boot drive is designated in the BIOS, usually in a section called Boot Priority or similar name.

"Earl Partridge" <earlpNG@xxxxxx> wrote in message news:ey5xQYtDJHA.3904@xxxxxx
I'm about to tackle my first addition of a SATA drive. I think I read somewhere that
SATA drives do not have Master - Slave, only CS. If true, how do I designate which
is to be the boot drive?

Also, appears that SATA data cables permit only one drive per cable?

Power, the one SATA drive I examined appears to be able to accept an old type
power cable or a newer type power cable?

Other tips and recommendations appreciated.

Earl

I think the subject is important because we're moving into a situation where
many of us want to use more than one OS without any risks or techie hassles.
I'd like to continue to use some old W98 software on a new computer, and
also mess around a bit with Linux.

So I have an additional reply and a supplementary question:

With my Dell, you don't need to go into the BIOS to choose your boot disk.
Just type F12 when invited. I suppose other motherboards have something
similar.

My problem is that only 2 (existing) SATA connectors are activatable, and I
use the second one for a data drive. Otherwise the easiest way to install an
additional OS would have been to add another drive.

Most conveniently this would be external. Presumably it would be best to use
SATA and not USB for this.

I read somewhere that you can simply plug in a SATA interface card, but they
don't seem to be available through the usual retail outlets. Any
recommendations?

Regards


"John Barnes" <JBarnes@xxxxxx> a écrit dans le message de
news:OqX2bAvDJHA.2056@xxxxxx
As Dominic said, the boot drive is designated in the BIOS, usually in a
section called Boot Priority or similar name.

"Earl Partridge" <earlpNG@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ey5xQYtDJHA.3904@xxxxxx
I'm about to tackle my first addition of a SATA drive. I think I read
somewhere that
SATA drives do not have Master - Slave, only CS. If true, how do I
designate which
is to be the boot drive?

Also, appears that SATA data cables permit only one drive per cable?

Power, the one SATA drive I examined appears to be able to accept an old
type
power cable or a newer type power cable?

Other tips and recommendations appreciated.

Earl

Some SATA2 (3 Gbit/sec throughput) have a pin setup for 1.5 or 3Gbit/sec
throughput for compatibility with older motherboards/SATA controllers;
there's no Master/Slave pin or setup, though.
Newer SATA3 go up to 6 Gbit/sec. Check wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA
Also, go to the manufacturer's website and look for installation
instructions in the Support area for details to what your mobo can run...
but think that you might upgrade mobo later and consider the latest SATA
specs.
Michael




"Earl Partridge" <earlpNG@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ey5xQYtDJHA.3904@xxxxxx
I'm about to tackle my first addition of a SATA drive. I think I read
somewhere that
SATA drives do not have Master - Slave, only CS. If true, how do I
designate which
is to be the boot drive?

Also, appears that SATA data cables permit only one drive per cable?

Power, the one SATA drive I examined appears to be able to accept an old
type
power cable or a newer type power cable?

Other tips and recommendations appreciated.

Earl

So far, no one has spoken about the advantages of SATA drives. THE ONLY
ADVANTAGE OF A SATA DRIVE IS THAT YOU GET TO USE A SLIM SERIAL CABLE!

Yes, SATA II has a theoritical data transfer rate of 3 Gb/s BUT don't
forget that your motherboard data transfer rate from the hard disk is
still 150 Mb/s.

So until manfacturers start producing motherboards that will sustain
the higher transfer rates, the only advantage of a SATA drive is the
slim cable which is really excellent for better PC case air flow!

If you expect to see any performance improvement, at this point, you
will not see any.

Tommy2


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.... for a single hard drive; however, you can set up all the types of RAID
with more SATAs.
Michael

"Tommy2" <Tommy2.3fanjb@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:Tommy2.3fanjb@xxxxxx

".... for a single hard drive; however, you can set up all the types of
RAID
with more SATAs.
Michael"

Sorry Michael, your technically way above me as I have no clue what you
just said?

I don't believe you can set up more types of RAID systems with a SATA
device than you could set up with an IDE system. Greatly increased data
transfer rate is the primary reason for going from parallel to serial
cables. But as mentioned before, SATA is a marketing whiz-word until
motherboards can sustain the transfer rate that a SATA drive can offer.
So at this point, I still say the ONLY thing gained by going with SATA
drives is you may get some better air flow within your PC case.

Tommy2


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