BleepingComputer.com: What type of hard drive?

Windows XP SP2
Hello everyone,
I have an MSI Motherboard from which l am running a Maxtor 30gb IDE hard drive.
Ok, now you've all had a laugh and pulled yourselves together, it's actually suited me quite fine over the years. I use about 14gb of it for the OS and other programs, and anything that is created
(ie docs, music, avi files etc) are sent to my external drive.
Also, being a smallish drive, all checks on it take hardly any time at all, rather than having to check a stonking large drive.
However, I'm slowly running out of space on my external drive but think that l should first upgrade my internal drive to something a bit more modern and a tad larger, ie 200gb +.
Now IDE, EIDE, ATA, PATA, SATA all starts to get me confused. Should l stick with the trusted IDE or should l get a SATA drive (with, l believe, a SATA to IDE converter)?
Any feedback would be appreciated.
Thanks

Don't use converters. I have read bad things about them.

It doesn't seem like you use much on that internal drive anyway. Why not just get a bigger external drive?

My two cents...

SATA drives are faster...and larger.

That said...I will use an IDE drive...to house my O/S and programs. I normally only use a 20GB partition for XP's system partition because I don't keep videos, graphics, etc. on my C: partition. I see no benefit to having a large drive containing my C: partition and I do perceive it as a possible liability because I prefer to have multiple hard drives, rather than multiple partitions on one drive.

SATA controllers allow users to enable the system to take advantage of SATA speeds.

I haven't checked lately...but I believe that IDE drives are a thing of the past, even though they still can be obtained...just as RAM for older motherboards can still be obtained by paying more than one would pay for newer/faster RAM.

I have pulled all of my EIDE/PATA drives and put them in the closet...because SATA drives are here, for the moment. SSDs will eventually supplant them, but it's still going to be some time before that happens (IMO).

Today...a 500GB hard drive is cheaper than a smaller SATA hard drive...so I would get the additional capacity, based on price.

Controller cards...I have a couple of those now, tending to favor Highpoint...but cheaper cards work for others. Make sure that you see "SATA" in the card description, IDE/PATA cards are dirt cheap now.

I have no experience with these SATA/PATA converters, but I would trust a controller card more.

So...I would keep the O/S and programs installed on the small drive (PATA/IDE) but use the large SATA drive for all storage of data files, backups, copies of programs installed, etc.

Louis

Thank you both for taking the time to reply, really interesting.
JonM - Quite right, existing drive is just for the OS and programs. OK, it's gonna hold avi files, docs etc temporarily until they are moved off, and I was just a little concerned about the age of the drive as newer ones seem to have faster access speeds and greater built in cache. If a newer drive of lets say the same size but has 7200rpm and 8mb of cache is not going to be faster, then another external would be the answer. Just plug and play!
Louis - Yep, IDE drives are two a penny at the moment (well not that expensive for what you get). So l think l'll stick with IDE to simplify things.
What do you reckon on this then - Think l'll get an IDE drive around the 80gb mark as my C drive (which will easily cover any temporary increases in size and more) and a second internal IDE drive of 250gb ish which will more than cover what l need, and will not require a further power supply (as does my external drive).
Have had a look around and can pick up both of these, new, for £50 (approx $77) which doesn't seem at all bad considering what l'd be getting for the money?
Regards
Brian

I myself would not get a larger PATA drive, for the reasons I listed.

Moving data files from the C: drive only takes a few seconds...I find it pretty easy and quick and I don't like anything extraneous on the system partition. Making an 80GB C:...is something I haven't done since the Era of the Super Large Hard Drive and the price drops of hard drives.

Louis

I have to concur with Louis, there isn't much sense in investing in technology that you won't be able to use when you upgrade, and eventually you will. Even if you have to install a PCI to SATA converter card, you will realize an appreciable speed difference. And when you go to upgrade your computer, you will be able to immediately install the SATA drive. This of course applies only to storage hdds.

^^^It's an IDE/ATA to SATA converter. They have risks of corrupting data and file systems. There is also a reduction in performance capability of that drive because data is going between multiple controllers as opposed to a single controller.

There won't be a "realized" speed difference either. The ATA100 (100MB/s) interface going to the motherboard is a bottleneck for a SATA 3.0 (375MB/s). It also will not feature NCQ performance improvements as ATA100 cannot handle NCQ. Also, some older ATA100 controllers did not feature 48-bit LBA which limits the drive to no greater than 137GB.

With a USB 2.0 enclosure he can get as big of a drive (2TB or more) as he wants and plug it into any computer without any limitation.

This post has been edited by JonM33: 26 August 2010 - 07:45 PM

JonM33, on Aug 26 2010, 07:40 PM, said:

That is why I suggested a PCI to SATA card. The bus speed of is faster that the transfer rate of IDE/ATA.

Ah, you are talking about a PCI SATA controller card? You added the "to" and "converter" so it confused me.

Here's an example: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16816115011

usb 2.0 hasaround the same bandwidth as sata 3.0, but usb transfers use a lot of cpu resounrces. performance wise, you would be better off getting another internal drive or 2, and keeping everything on the internal(s).

you should get a new hard drive for your primary, anyway- as hard drives usually only last around 3 years. you could get a large drive, and partition it, so that you could keep your os on 1 partition and your files on another, or you could get 2 separate drives.

sata, as a standard, is much faster than ide, but, you have to get a solid state sata drive to really utilize the sata bus.

you could also set up a raid 0 array or get a scsi controller, for added hard drive performance.

if you just upgrade your os drive, the only performance benefit will really be faster boot/opening times, as data transfers would eat up cpu cycles.