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Re: [LUG] SATA v PATA

 

David Bell wrote:
> I'm in the process of ordering components for an Athlon 64 Linux, single disk 
> desktop box and am undecided (baffled) as to which type of hdd to use.  Any 
> pro's or con's/advice from users would be appreciated.
>
> TIA
>
>   
Well I'd suggest going for SATA.  It has a faster transfer rate, the 
cables are much thinner (about 1cm wide rather than about 5cm wide for 
PATA cables) which makes things easier.  Unfortunately there don't seem 
to be very many SATA optical drives just yet but I'm sure things will 
increase in the next year.

I dare say if you're running a recent distro then you shouldn't have any 
problems with SATA.

The only con I can think of is with regards to the motherboards, you 
need one SATA connection for each device although even now motherboards 
are starting to have 4 or more SATA connections on them (I recently read 
about a board that had 8 SATA connectors).  This shouldn't be much of an 
issue for a single drive system but it is always nice to have some sort 
of upgrade ability in the future.

On the other hand I found that the new Dell systems (we use Dell at 
work) don't have any standard PATA ports on them which makes working 
with older hard drives a real pain unless you have a SATA to PATA adaptor.

With regards to the Athlon too, I'd go for one of the new AM2 boards if 
you can, they're bound to offer more future proofing than the Socket 754 
motherboard I have in my Athlon 64. :-)

Rob

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