[justenhansen]

I've been shopping for hard drives and it seems that SATA drives are way cheaper than EIDE. Isn't SATA faster? Will somebody help me understand this?

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You have just run into supply and demand pricing. Since the HD manufacturers are winding down the production of EIDE drives their prices are going up. Meanwhile SATA drives are what is hot since most of the newest motherboards only have 1 connector on the motherboard for EIDE drives and cd/dvd drives. They seem to be putting plenty of sata connectors on the MB's since most have 4 connectors. I just glad i dont need a terrabyte of HD's Even now you can get 4 500 gig SATA HD's for 2 terrabytes of space. So they have geared up for SATA and the warehouses are full. I think you get the picture. The only thing that counts to manufacturers is sales so they will push the newest hardware since it makes you upgrade to newer computers when you cant get the parts for the old ones.

I came, I saw, I don't have any money left

Think i'll wait for the conroes for my new build.

SRX660

[SRX660]

You have just run into supply and demand pricing. Since the HD manufacturers are winding down the production of EIDE drives their prices are going up. Meanwhile SATA drives are what is hot since most of the newest motherboards only have 1 connector on the motherboard for EIDE drives and cd/dvd drives. They seem to be putting plenty of sata connectors on the MB's since most have 4 connectors. I just glad i dont need a terrabyte of HD's Even now you can get 4 500 gig SATA HD's for 2 terrabytes of space. So they have geared up for SATA and the warehouses are full. I think you get the picture. The only thing that counts to manufacturers is sales so they will push the newest hardware since it makes you upgrade to newer computers when you cant get the parts for the old ones.

I came, I saw, I don't have any money left

Think i'll wait for the conroes for my new build.

SRX660

[justenhansen]

So the question is since I don't have a SATA connector, would a SATA drive work well through a SATA pci card?
Seems to me that I can get twice the storage for the price.

300 GB SATA drive $80 + SATA card 20 = $100 ebay prices.

Why would anybody buy an eide?

[happyrock]

So the question is since I don't have a SATA connector, would a SATA drive work well through a SATA pci card?
Seems to me that I can get twice the storage for the price.

300 GB SATA drive $80 + SATA card 20 = $100 ebay prices.

Why would anybody buy an eide?

because getting that PCI SATA card puts your SATA drive on the same bus that IDE drives on and sharing the PCI "pipe " with everything else that use's the PCI bus...besides the fact that SATA card is "old " only 150 MB...the new SATA drives are called 3G or SATA II...they have a theoretical limit of 300 MB per second...twice that of the SATA drives you will be getting...and as a capper to all this ..only a few IDE drives have come close to saturating the bus

[SRX660]

Sata drives do work well with a PCI card. Just don't expect Sata speeds on a PCI bus. You must remember that most of the people that have computers dont even know where their hard drive is in the computer. If they have problems they just want to have it fixed. Most will ask why they need a to buy a PCI card along with a hard drive. Can't you just install the HD in the computer they ask?

So there will be a pretty long period where IDE HD's will still be sold for people that do not have MB's that support Sata. They will just have to pay higher prices.

It's like the old PC133 memory. Have you looked at prices for them? They are higher now than the DDR memory.

A thought on buying HD's off Ebay. I have bought at least 20 drives over the years. Of the 20, 4 have failed within months, and 2 never worked from the get-go. On one dead one i have had to put a bad feedback on and start a dispute. The other one i informed my bank to stop payment as this was on the credit side of my bank card. The people threw a fit when i told them they could have the drive back if i was sent the shipping cost, otherwise the HD was going out with the trash. I won that dispute and they finally just said throw it away. There are some sellers on ebay that have pretty good feedbacks but still don't back themselves up when there is a problem. Some computer parts i do not buy from Ebay as i do not have the time to waste on bad parts. HD's, Video cards, power supplies, and laptop computers i do not touch. It's just not worth the problems to me.

SRX660

[happyrock]

I'm with SRX660 on buying anything on ebay....get your computer components from reputable sites like newegg...zipzoomfly...buy.com ...cyberguys...tigerdirect and there are more

Edited by happyrck, 11 July 2006 - 05:52 PM.

[justenhansen]

You guys rule.

[pip22]

I wouldn't buy anything on ebay -- whatever it is and however cheap it is. I can't afford to be ripped off and don't want the hassle when I am.