Main HDD is SATA-150 can I get a SATA-300 as a Slave or stay SATA-150 ???

[FulciLives]

Hello

My Main "C:" HDD is a Seagate 200GB SATA-150 8MB Cache drive but my computer can handle a 2nd SATA HDD and I was looking at some models and I can either get a Seagate 250GB SATA-150 8MB Cache for $123.38 shipped (bare bones with a SATA cable and a SATA power cord) or for about $10.00 more I can get a retail box Western Digital 250GB SATA-300 16MB Cache and being retail it includes all the cables and some "installation software".

I think I'm leaning towards the Western Digital but is it OK to "mix" SATA-150 with SATA-300 and would there be any concerns with my motherboard not being able to handle SATA-300? I'm not sure what brand or model my motherboard is as this was a store bought (circa December 2004) computer. This is a Pentium 4 540 3.2Ghz computer running WinXP Home SP2 with all Microsoft website updates.

If I should go with the OEM Seagate instead I should not need any "software" for installing it as WinXP Home should pretty much do it automatically, right? What about the BIOS? Do I need to change anything there so that the new HDD is recognized? I never had to install a SATA HDD before only dealt with regular EIDE ATA drives before.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[redwudz]

You shouldn't have to do anything with the drivers, just plug in the new drive, format it and go.

SATA II is backwards compatible with SATA I and will work fine on a SATA I controller. In fact many of the drives out now are SATA II.

It's not easy to even find a SATA II controller. There are a few of them around, but still pricey. I have mixed the two SATA drive types in several machines, no problems.

[FulciLives]

You shouldn't have to do anything with the drivers, just plug in the new drive, format it and go.

SATA II is backwards compatible with SATA I and will work fine on a SATA I controller. In fact many of the drives out now are SATA II.

It's not easy to even find a SATA II controller. There are a few of them around, but still pricey. I have mixed the two SATA drive types in several machines, no problems.

That is good to know and I thank you for your input here

One last thing ... do you still have to do the SLAVE/MASTER thing to the SATA HDD or has the technology gone past that yet

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[hrlslcbr]

There's no master or slave drive with SATA. Each drive gets connected to its own dedicated 'port' so you don't have to worry about that anymore .
By the way, I recently got a new 250GB SATA II HDD and it had to be set to work as a SATA I drive with a jumper so it would work with my SATA I controller.

[waheed]

SATA does away with jumper configuration, so no worries there.

I have three hard drives, 2 SATA and 1 SATAII.

Just bought a Western Digital 250GB SATA-300 16MB Cache last week and its working fine with my other two SATA drives as SATAII.

My config:

HDD 1: set as SATA-150 Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10,000 RPM (OS Drive)

HDD 2: set as SATA-300 Western Digital 250GB 16MB Cache

HDD 3: set as SATA-150 Seagate 160GB 8MB Cache

All drives work fine without any problems. All connected to my motherboard nvidia controller which supports SATAII.

Ive also connected the Western Digital 250GB SATA-300 drive to the Silicon Image controller of my motherboard and its works too (which only supports SATA 1 and not 2)

[FulciLives]

So it sounds like I am fine either way so the question becomes which is better ... Seagate or Western Digital?

Also the Western Digital is on backorder and will take "1 to 2 weeks" whereas the Seagate will ship immediately. Time however is really not of the essence so I can wait for the Western Digital if need be.

I should note that the Seagate is regular price whereas the Western Digital is a sale price. My understanding is even though the Western Digital is on back order I will get the sale price if I order it by this Saturday. I will just have to wait then for it to come back into stock before it gets mailed to me which as I mentioned is estimated at 1 - 2 weeks.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Skith]

from what I have read, the seagate drives generate much more heat, then the latest line of WD drives that impliment their "cool and quite" type functionality... I'm not sure of that is the actual description they use or not.

I know the WD 320GB IDE/SATA model uses it (I have one), the models/capacities below that, do not (unless they have changed things) so those drives will generate more heat.

you could take a peak at www.storagereview.com and check to see if they have tested any of the models you are looking at, I mostly pay attention to noise and heat level, since heat is one of the primary killers of hard drives.

[waheed]

Alos, check out the warranty periods on the hard drives. Seagate generally provide a 5 year warranty but just make sure. I know with my WD 250GB SATAII, I got a 3 year warranty; thats for an OEM drive. Retail drives may differ in warranty periods.

Strange thing is though a retail version of the drvie costs more, it only comes with a one year warranty than with the OEM drive which is 3 years (at least from where I purchased it).

[kush]

I wouldn't get the WD drive if it's a retail box drive..WD's retail units, with the exception of the Raptors and RE ("raid edition")/business class drives (5 year on those 2) only get 1 year warranties. All Seagates, whether OEM or retail are 5 year. Maxtor, I believe are 1 and 3 like WD.

Re: SATA300, I'm not sure of the Seagates, but my WD 250GB "KS" drive has a force SATA150 jumper on the back (ala M/S/CS for IDE drives), for boards that can't take an SATA300 drive..So, no problem, but no SATA300 performance - but you wouldn't notice the difference (150>300) without multiple drives in RAID anyway, with the exception of read bursts from the cache.

As to why the warranty periods got dumped on retail units by most "major" players in the market, it's simple - RMA rates and drive failures were too numerous in such a hotly contested market. I can only assume the reason why OEM drives didn't get the axe would be the fact that they are generally purchased by system builders, or at the very least someone with a fairly decent working knowledge of a PC's innards..The type of people with no need for fancy packaging, silly install manuals, or even cables.

[Morse2]

Hi FulciLives;

>>>...So it sounds like I am fine either way so the question becomes which is better ... Seagate or Western Digital?...<<<

It's less a question of company than of drive. I've had 4x Seagate 250GB's in my server and all have been replaced (and more added!) with WD 320GB's (in both IDE and SATA types to max out mobo's connectivity). It seems that some drive models are really well made (good production run?), while others leave something to be desired. I really liked my Seagate 160GB 7200.8's, but was less than impressed with the 250GB 'version'.

FWIW, the 250GB Seagate 7200.8s were warmer, noisier drives (and one dropped dead within a few weeks, though it was the noisiest of the lot by far and had a problem with "losing" data within a few days that no number of scandisks to isolate bad sectors would cure) than the WD 320's. The WD320 runs cool, fast, and I can't even hear the darn things during read/write cycles over normal cooling fans.

The prices you're listing seem a little steep though - look online at OEM units and see if you can shave some $$ off that purchase price. Only prob with mail order is that you have the potential for shipping "issues" (my new server case was delivered to the wrong address yesterday and I had to pick it up myself... we'll see if the other half of that order arrives at the right address today or if I have to fix more of UPS's mistakes ).

As far as IDE vs SATA 150 vs SATA 300, none of the current HDD's can really push the limits of ATA133 bandwidth. Thus, I always pick based on capacity, 'cool' operation, low noise, and cost rather than connectivity technology. 'Course in a year or two with the greater areal density per platter that vertical storage affords we may well have drives that make the choice of IDE vs SATA I vs SATA II more of an issue.

Good luck and all the best,
Morse

[greymalkin]

it never hurts to use some active cooling on your drives as well. I have 2 36gb raptors and a 200gb maxtor and a single fan spans across them on the side, sucking the hot air away through the gaps between them. They are always cool to the touch. Before I put the fan on there they would get pretty hot in a relatively short amount of time.