On Tue, Jun 09, 2009 at 04:55:27PM -0400, Eben King wrote:
> 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.
Well, if you were a motherboard manufacturer and you had a choice of
making motherboards with PATA and SATA, or PATA, or SATA, which would
you choose? One thing for sure-- you'd manufacture as few motherboards
with *both* interfaces as possible. So you'd pick which one was "the
future". That would be SATA, I think.
Paul
-- Paul M. Foster ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This list is provided as an unmoderated internet service by Networked Knowledge Systems (NKS). Views and opinions expressed in messages posted are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.
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