For cheap ATA/IDE drives, is it better to get a SATA adapter or a IDE/PCI card?

Question

For cheap ATA/IDE drives, is it better to get a SATA adapter or a IDE/PCI card?

Answer 1

It's fine to go with the adapter. The other answer was converting an SATA drive to a PATA interface, but it sounds like you want to run a PATA drive to an SATA interface, which is fine. Also, consumer hard drive mechanisms have not shown a significant performance difference between the two interfaces as both provide more than enough bandwidth for a standard 7200 rpm desktop drive. Since you said "cheap" I assume you don't mean "10K RPM".

Answer 2

Having SATA adapters for ATA/IDE drives is not going to give you optimal performance. The performance will still be same as PATA drive. True power SATA is only when the drive natively support the SATA interface.



Also SATA adapter need SATA power cables. Current power supplies don't have SATA power cables. You have to buy a SATA power adapter too.



Unless you want to buy a new SATA hard drive, I wouldn't recommend getting a SATA adapter.