sata advantages in car pc?

**FishPony** · 03-05-2005, 11:53 AM

ok i can get an 80 gig serial ata hard drive for 63 bucks or i can get a normal 80 gig ata100 hard drive for 40 bucks. which one should i get for my carpc? should i spend the extra 23 bucks and get serial ata? why or why not. Thanks

**Bugbyte** · 03-05-2005, 12:15 PM

From Webopedia:

"Often abbreviated SATA or S-ATA, an evolution of the Parallel ATA physical storage interface. Serial ATA is a serial link -- a single cable with a minimum of four wires creates a point-to-point connection between devices. Transfer rates for Serial ATA begin at 150MBps. One of the main design advantages of Serial ATA is that the thinner serial cables facilitate more efficient airflow inside a form factor and also allow for smaller chassis designs. In contrast, IDE cables used in parallel ATA systems are bulkier than Serial ATA cables and can only extend to 40cm long, while Serial ATA cables can extend up to one meter.

Serial ATA supports all ATA and ATAPI devices."

Sounds like it has a thinner cable and can be extended longer, although there are many on this board who have extended IDE cables a dozen feet or more with no ill effects.

Do you need these advantages? Are they worth $20 more to you?

**WebDog** · 03-05-2005, 12:28 PM

its basicly the same drive with a diferent conector, in the car i dont see an advantage to it.
I use it in Servers because of air flow and speed but for the car im runing a 4200 RPM 2.5" disk and have no proformance issues over pata.

**FishPony** · 03-05-2005, 12:29 PM

i'm going to go with a normal ata hard drive. Im going to order this power supply tonight and go get my hard drive tonight. does this look like its crap

http://www.outletpc.com/c0833.html

**WebDog** · 03-05-2005, 12:32 PM

what inverter are you planing on using with that?

**FishPony** · 03-05-2005, 12:38 PM

i have a pretty nice coleman 400 watt rms 800 max inverter. It survives crank with my laptop and with an xbox so i hope it will with this power supply also. I was going to get a 200 watt PS but when i added everything up it would be like 215 minimum and that was without a videocard which i might add someday. So im getting this 320 watt, for possible future upgrades

**WebDog** · 03-05-2005, 12:39 PM

id say get the PSU and try it. I havent used a inverter in my setup so i dont know to much about them lol

**TormentInFire** · 03-05-2005, 10:04 PM

Best thing about SATA at the moment is that it's hotswappable. Much faster than USB.

**NJ_Jackals** · 03-06-2005, 12:17 PM

but whats the best MB with sata support? I have two 200 gb sata HDs sitting on my desk right now but would hate to wast a pci slot on a controller card. I was planning on using the VIA MII-12000 but it does not have onboard SATA support.

-NJJ