New HDD, IDE or SATA? old PC..

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Nick_Escalantes

New Member
any opinions... I've got a PIII 750 Mhz HP, 756 RAM, w/ a stock 40 GB HDD. Looking to get a new HDD for storage. My ancient motherboard has never seen SATA... so

should I buy a SATA PCI card to plug into the motherboard to enable a SATA HDD? or just use the existing IDE connector?

i'm looking to get a 320 or 500 GB HDD. thanks.
 
No real reason to get SATA unless you can get the drive and controller for less. Though I'd be a bit afraid if the motherboard could even recognize a drive that large...
 
I am in a similar situation, so I thought I'll ask for the same advice here, instead of opening a new topic.

I'd like to buy a new HDD, and know nothing about any compatibility problems, or about motherboards not recognizing large drives. I intended to buy a 250 GB HDD as well, but how can I be sure that my old motherboard would "recognize" it?

This is the one I had in mind:

*HDD HDT725025VLAT80 HITACHI 250GB ATA100 7200rpm 8MB or
*HDD HITACHI HDP725025GLA380 250GB SATA-300 7200rpm 8MB or
*HDD HITACHI HDT725032VLA360 320GB SATA-300 7200rpm 16MB or
*HDD Seagate-Maxtor STM3250820AS/STM3250310AS, 250 GB 8MB, S-ATA300, NCQ, 7200

So my question is can I use them with my motherboard?

spec:

Intel Pentium 4A, 2000 MHz (5 x 400)
Gigabyte GA-8ST667(-L) (5 PCI, 1 AGP, 3 DIMM, Audio)
SiS 645DX
1024 MB (DDR SDRAM)
 
No real reason to get SATA unless you can get the drive and controller for less. Though I'd be a bit afraid if the motherboard could even recognize a drive that large...
Click to expand...
With an external controller you don't have to worry about the motherboard recognizing it. The controller has it's own BIOS and any for sale now will have 48bit LBA support. The only size question would come from the OS. XP Sp1 or bigger would recognize the full size.
 
And to future proof your purchase, you should get SATA. New motherboards are coming with only one ATA controller for legacy support and numerous SATA plugs. All new devices are going SATA. PATA is becoming a thing of the past.

So, for the size reasons as given previously, and the controller allowing you to get around that, and to future proof your purchase, you should get a SATA drive and a controller card.
 
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