SATA Hard Drives

[Ian_Coleman]

According to the motherboard handbook which came with my computer, SATA hard drives are supported.
I'm thinking of buying a SATA hard drive to put in an exterior caddy, which connects with the computer by USB. My intention would be to use this drive just for Trainz.
Can anyone please tell me whether the extra speed of a SATA drive would be cancelled out by the maximum speed of a USB connection.
If so, I think there would be no benefit in buying a SATA drive, and I might as well go for an IDE drive!

Ian

 

[Maddy25]

I would not recommend using an external USB drive for Trainz. USB 2.0 does have enough bandwidth to support hard-drives (i.e. the rate that the data can be transmitted across the USB bus is higher than the rate at which the hard-drive can generate), but USB has more overhead the busses commonly used internal to your computer (IDE and SATA for most home computers).

Both IDA and SATA can generate interrupts when there is data that needs to be handled by the computer and they can do direct transfers to your computer's RAM without even bothering the CPU (DMA), whereas USB relies on polling. Basically what this means is the following:

Interrupt-Driven and DMA Data Transfer:

- CPU tells the system to retrieve some data from the hard-drive. CPU is free to handle other tasks while it waits for the data.

- The hard-drive spins around and its read/write head dances and when the data starts to become available on the bus, it sends an interrupt to the system saying "here's some data that you need to handle!".

- If your system uses DMA, the bus controller can take that data and automatically plunk it into RAM as it's arriving and notify the CPU. Otherwise the CPU gets involved in handling the transfer from the hard-drive's bus to the RAM.

Poll-Driven Data Transfer:

- CPU tells the system to retrieve some data from the hard-drive. CPU then goes into a loop asking "Is the data here yet? Is it here yet? Where is my data? Is it here yet? I'm bored! Is the data here?"

- The hard-drive spins around and its read/write head dances; data starts to flow.

- The CPU finally sees data start to appear so it can get out of the "Is the data here yet" loop and start grabbing bytes off the disk bus and move them into the computer's RAM.

So, overall, your CPU will be busier while using a USB drive and won't have as much time to do really cool things like running Trainz.

- Madeline

 

[robbiehanson]

Um, you don't need motherboard SATA support to run any external drive, even if it is SATA...USB and the onboard PC board in the drive housing should take care of that. Though SATA still won't live up to anywhere near its potential plugged into USB...I'd stick with IDE drives for external, SATA for internal.

 

[JCitron]

Um, you don't need motherboard SATA support to run any external drive, even if it is SATA...USB and the onboard PC board in the drive housing should take care of that. Though SATA still won't live up to anywhere near its potential plugged into USB...I'd stick with IDE drives for external, SATA for internal.

For the most part I agree, but the price of SATA drives is coming down and so is the size of the drives as well.

For around $30-$50, you can get this awesome plug-in external caddy for SATA drives.


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153066&Tpk=blacXhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx Item=N82E16817153066&Tpk=BlacX

At NewEgg.

The BlacX by ThermalTake supports up to 1 TB hard drives. There is no case to put the drive into so the drive doesn't overheat. The drive simply plugs into the base and runs from there. The interface to the computer is USB 2.0. I got some on Friday. The price is right though. I took an older 200GB HD I had replaced with a 1 TB for my internal, and used it as my external backup. The through put is isn't bad considering it's USB, but I wouldn't recommend trying to run Trainz off of them because being USB the throughput isn't as good as a directly connected drive.

I picked up two at BestBuy and gave one to my brother.

John

 

[robbiehanson]

John, I don't use simply cables for the reason that it's much more likely to snap off pins on the drive(IDE or SATA both) than a full case. I have two external drives right now, both IDE and in cases, that have run 24/7 for the last two years with no problems. Heat doesn't seem to be a big issue, but it COULD BE if you're running Trainz or another HD-centric program off the drive.

EDIT: Never mind, idiot me just finally took a look at the item. That looks rather interesting...

 

[narrowgauge]

If you get the right remote drive enclosure, you can connect your SATA drive with a exterior SATA cable. This is fitted with special plugs, more robust than the normal SATA plug. This plugs into a special connector at the back of the computer that itself plugs into a SATA socket on the main board.

I have almost 2 tb of SATA drives accessible in this way.

Look for Sun Bright enclosures.

Cheers

Narrowgauge

 

[poppins122325]

According to the motherboard handbook which came with my computer, SATA hard drives are supported.
I'm thinking of buying a SATA hard drive to put in an exterior caddy, which connects with the computer by USB. My intention would be to use this drive just for Trainz.
Can anyone please tell me whether the extra speed of a SATA drive would be cancelled out by the maximum speed of a USB connection.
If so, I think there would be no benefit in buying a SATA drive, and I might as well go for an IDE drive!

Ian

to say it like it is yes a external hdd would be maxed out by the usb connection the best way would be to fit an esata card and use an esata drive enclosure to make a external hdd.

nathan