Are SATA and EIDE disks compatible?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ned
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Ned

It looks like my EIDE disk in my Dell 4300 is gone. I see the vendors
are selling SATA disks with 16mb cache - looks like good value. Will
they work OK in my Dell?
 
Ned said:
It looks like my EIDE disk in my Dell 4300 is gone. I see the vendors
are selling SATA disks with 16mb cache - looks like good value. Will
they work OK in my Dell?
Click to expand...

Do you see a SATA connector in there ? If there is no SATA connector,
then it would be best to shop for IDE (PATA). You can still buy
PATA drives, as I bought one just yesterday at a shop in town.
And you can find PATA versions to rival those offered in SATA
form - my shop in town even carries a 750GB with PATA interface.

http://www.devhardware.com/rhinoCms/__42b64lnOY1/img/dimen_4300_open.jpg

Judging by the stats for the computer (Devhardware lists a 1.8GHz
processor and a Geforce3 TI200 graphics card), my guess would be
there is no SATA connector present. But a picture of the
motherboard would make this easier to determine for sure.

Another site lists the unit as having SDRAM in it, which kinda
fixes the vintage of the unit, as not having SATA connectors.
If you wanted to use SATA, you'd need a plugin card, drivers
etc. Not worth the hassle, when an IDE drive with a ribbon cable
will do the job with no fuss.

For example, here is a 80GB Caviar with 8MB cache, for $44. Stick
with a small drive, to avoid other issues. The drive I bought
yesterday was an 80GB, to make it easy to move the drive between
OSes, and different vintages of hardware.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144122

My favorite drives right now, are Seagate. I got this one locally
yesterday. Same price as the Caviar ($44). The cache is not
really that important. These are pretty quiet.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148095

Paul
 
Ned said:
It looks like my EIDE disk in my Dell 4300 is gone. I see the vendors
are selling SATA disks with 16mb cache - looks like good value. Will
they work OK in my Dell?
Click to expand...

I am very new to SATA myself (just got my very first 500GB SATA drive for
around $160 after rebate) and haven't installed yet. Matter fact, just got
the $50 enclosure (expensive one) and may try to install to this enclosure
to be used as external hard drive.

Back to the main question, I guess *if* your motherboard has SATA
connector then no reason why it won't work. Also, when buying SATA hard
drive you may wanna go for the RETAIL as the OEM may not come with cable
that you will need.

Again, like I said that I am so new to SATA and hanven't installed my yet
to share my own experience, but I just happen to open the SATA HD earlier
today and it came with the SATA cable/connector that different than the
cable came with my motherboard (the cable came with mboard is SATA cable but
not SATA cable for Hard Drive).
 
No. You would need to have SATA ports on your motherboard, which you do not
have. IF, you have an open PCI slot you could install an SATA PCI card and
then use the SATA harddrive
 
I am very new to SATA myself (just got my very first 500GB SATA drive for
around $160 after rebate) and haven't installed yet. Matter fact, just got
the $50 enclosure (expensive one) and may try to install to this enclosure
to be used as external hard drive.

Back to the main question, I guess *if* your motherboard has SATA
connector then no reason why it won't work. Also, when buying SATA hard
drive you may wanna go for the RETAIL as the OEM may not come with cable
that you will need.

Again, like I said that I am so new to SATA and hanven't installed my yet
to share my own experience, but I just happen to open the SATA HD earlier
today and it came with the SATA cable/connector that different than the
cable came with my motherboard (the cable came with mboard is SATA cable but
not SATA cable for Hard Drive).
Click to expand...


There are two different types of cables for Sata. There is the sata
cable which has an "L" connector on the end and then there is eSata
cable and there isn't any "L" connector. I have eSata on one end and
sata on the other end. In my computer I have a little sata connector
in one of my slots that make my motherboard sata an external
connection.

On my laptop I have a PCI express slot and a card that is a sata II
card. I have a W.D. 250 MB H.D. with 16mb cache. Its usb2 or sata
connected. I backed up my hard drive with the usb2 and it took 49
mins. I did it with the sata and then it took 12 mins. Believe me I
don't like usb2 anymore.

If you don't have sata on the motherboard you can add a sata card.
 
There are two different types of cables for Sata. There is the sata
cable which has an "L" connector on the end and then there is eSata
cable and there isn't any "L" connector. I have eSata on one end and
sata on the other end. In my computer I have a little sata connector
in one of my slots that make my motherboard sata an external
connection.

On my laptop I have a PCI express slot and a card that is a sata II
card. I have a W.D. 250 MB H.D. with 16mb cache. Its usb2 or sata
connected. I backed up my hard drive with the usb2 and it took 49
mins. I did it with the sata and then it took 12 mins. Believe me I
don't like usb2 anymore.

If you don't have sata on the motherboard you can add a sata card.
Click to expand...

My mboard inclued SATA cable with 2-ends are identical (look kinda like
USB connector type, not exactly same of course), and the external enclosure
with USB-2 and SATA supported came with similar connector (to connect from
back of enclosure to mboard). But the 500GB SATA drive came with different
SATA cable/connector.

- One end connects to the Hard Drive looks similar to regular hard drive
connector with 40-80-PINs (I never counted to know the exact number), and
this is what I was trying to remind the original poster

- The other end is SATA supposes to connect to mboard or external SATA
connector looks similar to USB connector.

BTW, local Best Buy has WD 500GB SATA drive onsale for $150 with no rebate
needed, and I am thinking of getting another one. But dunno if I need
another 500GB when I just got one few weeks ago <g>
 
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