Better Windows performance: SATA or IDE?

Steve M

Steve M

Steve M

Associate
Joined
14 Dec 2007
Posts
1,587
Hi. I have PC in sig with XP on a 160GB 7200 IDE HD. Windows has its own 60GB partition. Also have 2 SATA Drives, 1x 200GB and 1x500GB for storage and stuff.

Just built my 7 year old daughter this PC (also running XP):

AMD Athlon 64 3200+
Corsair 2GB XMS 3200C2PT DDR400 (2x 512MB, 1x 1GB)
ATI Radeon 2400 Pro 256MB
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy
DFI LANPARTY UT nForce3 250Gb
Hitachi Deskstar 7K160 160GB SATA-II 8MB
LiteON DH-20A1S-18C 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter
TAGAN TG-380-U01 380W PSU
Akasa AK-ZEN-01-WH Zen White Case
Logitech PS/2 Optical Wheel Mouse (White)
Logitech Deluxe Keyboard (White)
X-Micro Wireless LAN 11MBit Mini-USB-Adapter
Belinea 1925S1W 19" Widescreen LCD Monitor
Creative SBS380 2.1 Speakers

I already had the MOBO, CPU, Memory, soundcard, wireless adapter and PSU and bought the rest new from Overclockers. First PC i have ever built without any IDE devices.

My question is does Windows run better from a SATA drive? On her PC (with inferior hardware to mine) it boots quicker and generally feels snapier..

I know a new install of Windows will generally start off nice and quick but the build of Windows on my PC i am comparing it to is only 3 weeks old. Also on her PC iTunes and Photoshop Elements definately open much quicker than on my PC.

Thoughts?
 
Steve M said:
My question is does Windows run better from a SATA drive?
Click to expand...

RichieM said:
Yes
Click to expand...

Not necessarily. The interface makes virtually no difference to the performance, it's the physical characteristics of the disk itself, the spindle speed and the data density, which will determine the speed.

If you were to compare an IDE Seagate 7200.10 with a SATA 7200.7 then the IDE one would be significantly quicker. Swap the interfaces and the 7200.10 would still be faster.
 
All things being mechanically equal, SATA will be faster as an interface and is imo always preferable due to its ease of use and hot-swap capability... as well as the thinner cables/connectors.
 
Although I like the thin cables SATA provides us with, I hate those flimsy excuses for connectors on the harddrives.

With IDE drive, you could put your hand amongst that rats nest of cables - sure the IDE might dislodge itself from the harddrive, but no damage.

With SATA, as soon as you fumble around the cables, you're at instant risk to breaking off that SATA connector on the drive.

And yes...I have done it...once. :o:o
 
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