Difference between SATA and IDE interface?

wing70301 · March 6, 2007 9:55PM

Hey all,

I have a big question for you guys. I'm looking to buy an external hard drive. At first, I was going to buy the Lacie Rugged HD, but realized that I could buy a 2.5" HD and a 2.5" HD enclosure for much cheaper. However, I've come into a bit of a problem. This is the HD I want to get:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822145113

Notice that the interface is Serial ATA (Found in the column on the right, under specifications). Here's the enclosure I want to get:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817146604

Now, notice that the internal interface of this enclosure is IDE (Found in the column on the right, under specifications).

So my big question is, will this hard drive work with this enclosure? I don't know the difference between IDE and SATA, if there is any, so I'm coming to you guys. Thanks for the help!

hardeeharhar · March 7, 2007 12:14AM

No. it won't work.

IDE (ATA) is parallel.

SATA is serial.

baranovich · March 7, 2007 12:28PM

If you are going to buy an SATA harddrive, then you need an SATA enclosure. Likewise, if you are going to buy an IDE enclosure, you need an IDE harddrive.

wing70301 · March 7, 2007 2:49PM

Cool! Thanks a lot, guys!

drewprops · December 23, 2007 8:56AM

::bump::

I think there's a way to use the enclosure....

Last week I opened up my order from NewEgg and realized that I'd made a blunder... the 20x DVD burner I'd purchased was SATA, but the enclosure I'd purchased was IDE. What a dummy I felt.

This set me to searching for the correct enclosure, and you know what gang? Those little buggers are nearly impossible to find in a 5.25" configuration right now, especially from any online stores I feel comfortable using.

The only enclosure that fits my needs (sized for an optical drive, possessing internal SATA connection for the drive and external firewire ports) is made by Addonics, and the reviews from NewEgg make it sound like a real stinker... plus it's currently unavailable.

But as I got to reading, I discovered that there's a bridge/adapter you can buy for about $15 that simply plugs into the back of your IDE device and provides the 40 pin IDE connector on its back.

Bingo! Now you can use any IDE enclosure you want to run your SATA device.

At least, that's what I'm hoping. If anybody here has firsthand experience using one of these bridge devices please let me know if I'm headed for a solution or for bigger problems. Right now I feel like I've discovered a way to use the enclosure I already have~!

.

talksense101 · December 23, 2007 10:03AM

Don't cripple your SATA interface by bridging it to an IDE interface. IDE interfaces are slow and outdated. It isn't too far fetched to compare IDE to a COM port and SATA to a USB port.

turtle2472 · December 23, 2007 10:29AM

Yeah, but in Drew's case it's his best option until he can get his hands on a SATA enclosure for his burner.

drewprops · December 23, 2007 11:42AM

Oooo, thanks for the comparison talksense101, I was wondering if someone could give me an idea if I'd take a hit on the performance of the SATA drive. I wonder how long it'll be before the jam is broken on getting 5.25 SATA-ready enclosures on the street.... Turtle, having this burner up and running isn't a pressing problem, I think I can wait a month or two if the options open up and the prices drop down.

The only places I'm seeing these things are on NewEgg.com and CoolDrives.com, the latter of which has a boatload of drives but seems fairly small change... wondering if they're reliable.

sequitur · December 23, 2007 3:19PM

When (and IF) Apple goes to FW3.2GB, will it require different computer components? Would any of the existing enclosures work or will there have to be a new type enclosure.

karelia · December 23, 2007 7:28PM

Something tells me that IDE, which communicates at 1.33Gb, will do fine for a DVD-burner. Serial ATA is either 1.50Gb or 3.0Gb, depending on the interface. All SuperDrives in the current Macs are functioning over ATA anyway.

drewprops · December 23, 2007 8:41PM

I'm unfamiliar with how the write speed of optical devices coincide with bus speeds... this setup would have data pushed out at Firewire 400 speed, through IDE, translated into SATA, to a 20x DVD burner.... if it works at all I'll be fairly astonished.... what a laborious route!!

The things we take for granted these days...

karelia · December 23, 2007 9:14PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by drewprops

I'm unfamiliar with how the write speed of optical devices coincide with bus speeds... this setup would have data pushed out at Firewire 400 speed, through IDE, translated into SATA, to a 20x DVD burner.... if it works at all I'll be fairly astonished.... what a laborious route!!

The things we take for granted these days...

Oh, I totally forgot about the FireWire part. 1.33Gb versus 3.0Gb makes no difference when both are going through 400Mb. If the IDE/SATA bridge works for you, don't worry about changing to a SATA enclosure later.

drewprops · December 24, 2007 6:24AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Karelia

Oh, I totally forgot about the FireWire part. 1.33Gb versus 3.0Gb makes no difference when both are going through 400Mb. If the IDE/SATA bridge works for you, don't worry about changing to a SATA enclosure later.

::smacks head::

Well I should have been able to do THAT math.... ::sigh:: Thanks!!

fatherjack43 · December 26, 2007 2:57PM

As far as I know, SATA drives are faster than IDE ,,

karl kuehn · December 26, 2007 7:34PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fatherjack43

As far as I know, SATA drives are faster than IDE ,,

The SATA interface is faster than the P-ATA (Parallel ATA, often incorrectly referred to as IDE). But that does not guarantee that the drives hung off them are faster/slower.

drewprops · January 3, 2008 7:04PM

Hey guys,

This is an update, for anyone else who wanders down this particular path...

So today my SATA to IDE host adapter arrived and so I slipped hooked it up to the drive, bunged the drive down into the enclosure and fired that contraption up.... only to encounter some problems.

Toast 8 hangs at some point in the process of writing a DVD.

Now, if you let it go for the length of the burn, until the drive spins down, then shut off power to the drive, click through two warning dialog boxes, watch Toast 8 expand back from the burn window to the organize window and THEN power the external drive back up, you'll see a window that opens up to reveal the files that you thought that you were burning. However, if you eject that disc and insert it into another drive it appears to be unreadable.... so the disc isn't "finalizing" somehow (I surmise).

The best solution I can think of is to cut my losses and order an IDE DVD burner... does that sound smart to you guys? Thanks!

karelia · January 3, 2008 10:04PM

Probably. SATA optical drives are kinda pointless, since ATA busses move faster than the CD and DVD read/write speeds anyway.

talksense101 · January 4, 2008 11:05AM

a SATA drive's io bufferring offers greater speed and capacity, resulting in more stable burns/reads.

you are constrained by your computer's interface which is a firewire connector. i would just go with whichever is more stable and offers better drivers for your operating system.

an external SATA drive would be nice if you had a motherboard with a eSATA port which offers the same bus speed outside the enclosure as that of internal drives.

drewprops · January 4, 2008 1:14PM

Oh buddy, if I had a tower I'd totally look into jamming an eSATA card into it and using those enclosures... as it is, I'll be dropping back into IDE just to have a dependable drive that's faster than the one built into the iMac (plus the LightScribe feature). Looking to see if I can still return the SATA optical drive now....

turtle2472 · January 5, 2008 9:19PM

If you can't return it I might be able to help take it off your hands, though I'm still not sure I need it just yet. I'm spec'ing a hackintosh right now and would be going SATA all the way.

dcj001 · January 14, 2008 11:48PM

I recently upgraded my HD to the Hitachi 200GB 7200 RPM for $169.99:

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Hitachi/0A50940/

and I got this enclosure for the 80GB SATA that came with my MacBook for $11.99 with free shipping. It's well made, inexpensive, and it works:

http://www.xpcgear.com/emvst25.html

Difference between SATA and IDE interface?

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