# Whats the difference between IDE and Sata DVD drives?



## vbx (Jun 7, 2009)

Are there any difference in quality or speed?  

For IDE, I just need one IDE plug to connect 2 drives to the MOBO right? 

For Sata, it would need 2 sata plugs and it would take up 2 sata ports?


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## 1Kurgan1 (Jun 7, 2009)

SATA is a faster transfer rate, and both should only take up one of their respective ports. You might be looking at the back of the SATA drive and thinking it requires 2 ports, but the other long part you see is actually the STA power connector as they are different from IDE drives.


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## vbx (Jun 7, 2009)

1Kurgan1 said:


> SATA is a faster transfer rate, and both should only take up one of their respective ports. You might be looking at the back of the SATA drive and thinking it requires 2 ports, but the other long part you see is actually the STA power connector as they are different from IDE drives.



I was talking about if I hook up to Sata DVD drives..  I would need 2 sata plugs.

Whereas, the IDE,  has 2 slots in one plug.


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## DreamSeller (Jun 7, 2009)

vbx said:


> I was talking about if I hook up to Sata DVD drives..  I would need 2 sata plugs.
> 
> Whereas, *the IDE,  has 2 slots in one plug.*



yep


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## Mussels (Jun 7, 2009)

the IDE ones are IDE, the SATA ones are SATA.
There ya go, question answered 

Yeah, on the other question: you get two drives per IDE cable, but one drive per SATA cable. But since you only get two IDE ports (four drives) on most boards and 6+ SATA... its no big loss.


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## n-ster (Jun 7, 2009)

I would still go with quality and speed... a SATA Drive is faster and usually better built


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## Mussels (Jun 7, 2009)

speed doesnt make a difference, IDE can do 133MB/s and SATA can do 150MB/s.

That said, DVD at 24x (fastest drive i've seen) is 31.68MB/s - it makes no difference.


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## n-ster (Jun 7, 2009)

wtv I'd still buy SATA  unless IDE is over 2$ cheaper


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## DonInKansas (Jun 7, 2009)

IDE cables are ugly and built from the tears of children.

Think of the children;  use SATA drives.


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## 1Kurgan1 (Jun 7, 2009)

The SATA isn't going to be a crazy amount faster, but they are a far better choice to make the inside of the case look much better. Ribbon cables are a bitch and I hate them, working with SATA cables is just far easier and cleaner.


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## Mussels (Jun 7, 2009)

SATA isnt any faster at all. see the speeds i posted earlier.

The nice and tiny cable is the only bonus. its a good bonus.


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## h3llb3nd4 (Jun 7, 2009)

In the future IDE cables and ports would be like a record player. and SATA would be mp3 players....
I 'd rather be carrying a mp3 player than tons of bloody records


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## vbx (Jun 7, 2009)

Alright, I guess I'm going with the SATA drive.  I just checked the mobo I'm getting and it has 6 ports.


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## vbx (Jun 7, 2009)

h3llb3nd4 said:


> In the future IDE cables and ports would be like a record player. and SATA would be mp3 players....
> I 'd rather be carrying a mp3 player than tons of bloody records



You mean it's like  DSL VS Cable.  I guess.


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## hat (Jun 7, 2009)

Nothing. Just a thinner cable easier to work with for cable management, or if you don't do much cable management, a smaller cable to block less airflow. It is impossible for a SATA drive to be faster than an IDE one simply because the disc can't spin enough to come anywhere near maxing the IDE bus out.


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## h3llb3nd4 (Jun 7, 2009)

vbx said:


> You mean it's like  DSL VS Cable.  I guess.



Yeah something like that


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## Mussels (Jun 7, 2009)

vbx said:


> You mean it's like  DSL VS Cable.  I guess.



DSL can go above and beyond what cable can offer. its a very poor analogy.
cable took off in the USA for commercial reasons, not technical ones.


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## vbx (Jun 7, 2009)

Mussels said:


> DSL can go above and beyond what cable can offer. its a very poor analogy.
> cable took off in the USA for commercial reasons, not technical ones.



But Time Warner says Cable is 10x faster then DSL. lol

I wouldn't say poor analogy since you claim DSL is faster than Cable,  and Sata is faster than IDE... 

A poor analogy would be the MP3 vs Record player in this case.   Since it has nothing to do with speed.


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## 1Kurgan1 (Jun 7, 2009)

Mussels said:


> SATA isnt any faster at all. see the speeds i posted earlier.
> 
> The nice and tiny cable is the only bonus. its a good bonus.



It is capable of being faster, just nothing uses what its cap is right now and thats SATA 1, SATA 2 300/mb/sec, I always wondered why when it came out.


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## btarunr (Jun 7, 2009)

1Kurgan1 said:


> SATA is a faster transfer rate



No optical disk format is bottlenecked by IDE.


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## h3llb3nd4 (Jun 7, 2009)

vbx said:


> But Time Warner says Cable is 10x faster then DSL. lol
> 
> I wouldn't say poor analogy since you claim DSL is faster than Cable,  and Sata is faster than IDE...
> 
> A poor analogy would be the MP3 vs Record player in this case.   Since it has nothing to do with speed.



Speed is not a problem here really...
the tiny cables are a bonus with SATA cables...


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## wiak (Jun 7, 2009)

well SMALLER CABLES!
and no more crappy IDE cables that can bend like crap
you also get better airflow with sata cables


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## 1Kurgan1 (Jun 7, 2009)

btarunr said:


> No optical disk format is bottlenecked by IDE.



Read the post above yours


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## btarunr (Jun 7, 2009)

1Kurgan1 said:


> Read the post above yours



I wasn't replying to that 

The fastest production format (BDR @ 12x) reads at 54 MB/s. Since this thread is about DVD-RW, (the fastest of which is 24x or 32 MB/s), hoping that SATA will be of use for its higher bandwidth (in context of DVD), is useless.


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## wiak (Jun 7, 2009)

1Kurgan1 said:


> Read the post above yours


blu-ray readers and burners might


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## 1Kurgan1 (Jun 7, 2009)

btarunr said:


> I wasn't replying to that
> 
> The fastest production format (BDR @ 12x) reads at 54 MB/s. Since this thread is about DVD-RW, (the fastest of which is 24x or 32 MB/s), hoping that SATA will be of use for its higher bandwidth (in context of DVD), is useless.



Right, but I did modify my response, usually you wouldn't quote something that I later on explained better.



wiak said:


> blu-ray readers and burners might



I still don't think they come close, maybe SATA 150mb/sec, but 300mb/sec :O


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## btarunr (Jun 7, 2009)

1Kurgan1 said:


> Right, but I did modify my response, usually you wouldn't quote something that I later on explained better.



Even that explanation didn't show how DVD will benefit from SATA, even in the future. Even at 52x, a DVD would only pass 70.2 MB/s.


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## DrPepper (Jun 7, 2009)

wiak said:


> blu-ray readers and burners might



No they won't. They only can do 54MB/s compared to IDE's 133MB/s. That said I've never seen an ide blu ray drive.


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## Polarman (Jun 7, 2009)

Their just moving DVD further into SATA region so they can ditch IDE once and for all.


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## Homeless (Jun 7, 2009)

Other than the slight differences (firmware, quality, etc) it's just a cable difference


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## n-ster (Jun 8, 2009)

just like that, DSL loses bandwidth from the distance ALOT...


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