I'm just looking at data transfer speeds on various types of hdd. I know
it's a general question but is SATA the fastest? What about the USB drives?
Are they faster at reading and writing than standard PATA drives?
Crouchez wrote:
> I'm just looking at data transfer speeds on various types of hdd. I know
> it's a general question but is SATA the fastest? What about the USB drives?
> Are they faster at reading and writing than standard PATA drives?
USB Drives are in fact SATA or PATA drives in a box with an ATA-to-USB
interface adapter. The max transfer rate of USB is significantly lower
that the max transfer rate of a contemporary SATA/PATA drive, and will
be the limiting factor. Moreover, it's been my practical experience
that the USB interface cannot sustain anything close the max transfer rate.
Most PATA drives available now are either ATA-100 or ATA-133, meaning
max transfer rates of 100 and 133 MB/s respectively. SATA-1 tops out at
150 MB/s. The limiting factor, though, appears to be the internal
mechanism of the drive, and not the interface. Western Digital and
Seagate, for instance, remain competitive with their ATA-100 offerings
while other manufacturers have fixed upon ATA-133.
In short: Unless you need the portability of a USB drive, go with an
internal one.
On Tue, 21 Aug 2007 05:35:02 GMT, "Crouchez"
<blah@bllllllahblllbllahblahblahhh.com> wrote:
>I'm just looking at data transfer speeds on various types of hdd. I know
>it's a general question but is SATA the fastest?
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. The predominate factor is
which specific drive you choose for comparison. However,
given equal drives the SATA interface does have a minor
performance advantage.
>What about the USB drives?
There are no USB drives, only SATA or PATA drives bridged
over to USB interface. Since USB is inherantly slower from
both a total throughput and latency factor, they are the
worst alternative if performance matters (but USB IS
convenient sometimes).
>Are they faster at reading and writing than standard PATA drives?
>
You seem to be trying to compare out of context, which is
seldom a good idea, things like whether either controller is
sitting on the PCI bus tend to matter more than which (SATA
or PATA) you are using.
"Crouchez" <blah@bllllllahblllbllahblahblahhh.com> wrote in message
news:aQuyi.23029$p7.18471@fe2.news.blueyonder.co.u k...
> I'm just looking at data transfer speeds on various types of hdd. I know
> it's a general question but is SATA the fastest? What about the USB
> drives? Are they faster at reading and writing than standard PATA drives?
You have slightly jumbled terms...
SATA and IDE are the interface type, not the drive transfer speed. PATA (or
IDE or EIDE) has a maximum throughput of 133MB/s. SATA has a maximum
throughput of 150MB/s. SATA II has a maximum throughput of 300MB/s.
The speed of the hard disk has nothing* to do with the interface type and
modern hard disks can sustain around 70MB/s, so any interface type is more
than enough headroom for hard disk.
You may be able to measure a performance improvement with a SATA transfer as
the burst rate is higher (can transfer data to the hard disk's cache at the
maximum bus speed), however in reality, the performance improvement will be
measured in thousandths of a second!
*The interface type doesn't directly affect the speed of a drive, but
'things' can be optimised for a particular interface type, so performance
differences, whilst slight, can be observed.
On Wed, 22 Aug 2007 05:13:13 GMT, "Crouchez"
<blah@bllllllahblllbllahblahblahhh.com> wrote:
>cheers for the info. am just woindering whether it's worth upgrading to a
>sata motherboard
>
For SATA alone, no.
We can't say whether any other features are worthwhile, you
don't mention the specifics. Generally speaking, upgrading
a motherboard while keeping same CPU and memory is never a
good upgrade.
"kony" <spam@spam.com> wrote in message
news:97mnc3hcl5d8sq7ru0m3dvv88irpbsbksj@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 22 Aug 2007 05:13:13 GMT, "Crouchez"
> <blah@bllllllahblllbllahblahblahhh.com> wrote:
>
>>cheers for the info. am just woindering whether it's worth upgrading to a
>>sata motherboard
>>
>
>
> For SATA alone, no.
>
> We can't say whether any other features are worthwhile, you
> don't mention the specifics. Generally speaking, upgrading
> a motherboard while keeping same CPU and memory is never a
> good upgrade.
what about a SATA drive with a USB interface? will that be faster than a
standard 133Mb PATA?
"kony" <spam@spam.com> wrote in message
news:97mnc3hcl5d8sq7ru0m3dvv88irpbsbksj@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 22 Aug 2007 05:13:13 GMT, "Crouchez"
> <blah@bllllllahblllbllahblahblahhh.com> wrote:
>
>>cheers for the info. am just woindering whether it's worth upgrading to a
>>sata motherboard
>>
>
>
> For SATA alone, no.
>
> We can't say whether any other features are worthwhile, you
> don't mention the specifics. Generally speaking, upgrading
> a motherboard while keeping same CPU and memory is never a
> good upgrade.
But I can almost triple the data transfer speed if I upgrade to a SATA
board?
On Wed, 22 Aug 2007 19:31:59 GMT, "Crouchez"
<blah@bllllllahblllbllahblahblahhh.com> wrote:
>
>"kony" <spam@spam.com> wrote in message
>news:97mnc3hcl5d8sq7ru0m3dvv88irpbsbksj@4ax.com.. .
>> On Wed, 22 Aug 2007 05:13:13 GMT, "Crouchez"
>> <blah@bllllllahblllbllahblahblahhh.com> wrote:
>>
>>>cheers for the info. am just woindering whether it's worth upgrading to a
>>>sata motherboard
>>>
>>
>>
>> For SATA alone, no.
>>
>> We can't say whether any other features are worthwhile, you
>> don't mention the specifics. Generally speaking, upgrading
>> a motherboard while keeping same CPU and memory is never a
>> good upgrade.
>
>what about a SATA drive with a USB interface? will that be faster than a
>standard 133Mb PATA?
>
No, it will be much slower if the drives themselves are
otherwise equivalent.
On Wed, 22 Aug 2007 19:36:20 GMT, "Crouchez"
<blah@bllllllahblllbllahblahblahhh.com> wrote:
>
>"kony" <spam@spam.com> wrote in message
>news:97mnc3hcl5d8sq7ru0m3dvv88irpbsbksj@4ax.com.. .
>> On Wed, 22 Aug 2007 05:13:13 GMT, "Crouchez"
>> <blah@bllllllahblllbllahblahblahhh.com> wrote:
>>
>>>cheers for the info. am just woindering whether it's worth upgrading to a
>>>sata motherboard
>>>
>>
>>
>> For SATA alone, no.
>>
>> We can't say whether any other features are worthwhile, you
>> don't mention the specifics. Generally speaking, upgrading
>> a motherboard while keeping same CPU and memory is never a
>> good upgrade.
>
>But I can almost triple the data transfer speed if I upgrade to a SATA
>board?
This has already been covered, no you cannot because the
drive itself does not transfer at that SATA300 speed- that
is only a theoretical upper limit except for very brief
cached transfers. The specific drive you choose matters
more than which interface it uses when considering PATA or
SATA. Of the 3 busses, only USB is so slow that it will
always be slower with any semi-modern drive.
Disk transfer rates 
Linear Mode
