what would be your choice?

[inuyasha]

Hi ya,
I am getting a second hard drive for my computer which mainly will be used for video capturing, editing, encoding etc. Given the choice of
a: ATA 133 EIDE 16M Cache 7200rpm 200G from Maxtor, and
b: SATA 150 8M Cache 7200rpm 200G from Seagate.

Which one would better suit my need?

My computer is AMD XP 3000, KT6 Delta MB, 512M DDR 400, Win98SE.
(yes, MB supports 48bit LBA for large drive).

[waheed]

Depends on what you currently have on the IDE channels. If prices are similar, I would go for SATA, IMO, as for video encoding, its best to use a seperate channel.

Though I doubt you will see any speed difference between the two.

[e404pnf]

I voted for the SATA.
As Weheed said doubt you'd see a real difference in performance - I certainly haven't - but the SATA is just a little "nicer". The smaller cables allow for better air flow through your case, and as prices are about the same (in fact SATA is often a little cheaper in the UK) you might as well get the newest technology. Also, you've got to love that the SATA's will hot plug and play like a USB device 8)

- e404pnf

[inuyasha]

Thanks for the replies.
The SATA is slightly faster than PATA (150 vs 133) for data to go from the hard disk controller to the computer. However, the SATA has only half the amount of cache memory than the PATA. Isn't is true that the bottle neck in reading data from the hard disk is the time it takes to locate the info on the disk, fetch it, and send it to the hard disk controller? A drive with a bigger cache memory will not need to physically access the platters as often as the one with a smaller cache memory, and therefore can actually read faster, right?
I don't know in real life application, which factor is more predominant, data transfer speed or cache memory? Is there anyone who have compared the two?

[waheed]

I dont think cache memory makes a difference. The question you should be asking is whether hard drives fully utilise the full capacity of the cache memory. I think not.

RPM is the major contributing factor in determining speed. Other than that, the rest do not give any noticable speed increase.

[Faustus]

Assuming you have a nice onboard SATA controller I'd go with the ATA Bus, its very nice.

I DO think cache makes a difference, but the SATA bus alone is faster and IMO provides a more all around smooth transfer, and smooth goes a long way with me. Its why I always loved but sadly couldn't afford SCSI.

[ofbarea]

I would opt for the extra cache (besides I hate Seagate).

The ATA 133 EIDE 16M Cache 7200rpm 200G from Maxtor would be my choice.

[inuyasha]

Thanks for all replies.
I ended up going with the SATA from Seagate, which had I waited a week, I would have gotton the Maxtor's new SATA with 16M cache.
Oh Well, Seagate has a 5 years warranty then Maxtor's 3 years. Sometimes you need that extra 2 years.

[Lucifers_Ghost]

Yes, especially with Maxtor drives. I have had so many problems with them myself. Others have had none. Strange.