Re: [SLUG] PATA or SATA?

From: Eben King (eben01@verizon.net)
Date: Tue Jun 09 2009 - 16:55:27 EDT


On Tue, 9 Jun 2009, Paul M Foster wrote:

> On Tue, Jun 09, 2009 at 02:53:38PM -0400, Eben King wrote:
>
>> I'm looking at two DVD/CD burners. Same line, same specs, same price.
>> One's IDE/ATAPI and the other's SATA. All my SATA cables are in use so I'd
>> have to pick one up if I need one. But other than that, it doesn't matter
>> to me which one I choose. Is there any reason I should choose one over the
>> other? Are motherboard PATA interfaces going to get hard to find within
>> the
>> lifetime of this drive (say 5-10 years)?
>
> My *opinion*: yes. I suspect SATA is cheaper to manufacture (smaller
> form factor) and install on motherboards. Way back when, CPUs and
> controllers were too slow to deal with a serial interface for a hard
> drive. But SATA helps make the point that processing power has far
> out-distanced rotating disk hard drives. I expect PATA drives to go the
> way of 30 and 72 pin memory sticks.
>
> If you're still unsure, go by CompUSA and look at all the hard drives
> lined up on the shelves. What percentage are SATA and what percentage
> are PATA?

Well yeah, for hard drives, sure. But I was wondering about optical-media
drives. For example, at

http://newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010100005%201036506653

(DVD burners), there are 17 PATA and 22 SATA models listed. That's not so
clear cut. Now I don't know the sales figures for these various drives.
It could be that 95% of the sales are of one model.

-- 
-eben      QebWenE01R@vTerYizUonI.nOetP      royalty.mine.nu:81
VIRGO:  All Virgos are extremely friendly and intelligent - except
for you.  Expect a big surprise today when you wind up with your
head impaled upon a stick. -- Weird Al, _Your Horoscope for Today_
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