Re: should I get SATA drives for old PC?
On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 09:54:55AM -0700, Carl Johnson wrote:
> Steve Kleene <skdeb@syrano.acb.uc.edu> writes:
>
> > Before I build a Lenny system on my 5-year-old PC, I want to replace the two
> > internal hard drives. I'm not too swift with hardware specs and want to make
> > sure I get the right drives. I will probably get 500GB drives and do not
> > expect to set up RAID.
> >
> > The drives now are Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 8 6K040L0 40GB 7200 RPM IDE Ultra
> > ATA133. There isn't much of a selection anymore with the ATA100 or ATA133
> > interfaces; most new drives are SATA 3 GB/s.
> >
> > The motherboard is an Asus P4P800 Deluxe. It has two SATA connectors and
> > came with the cables. The motherboard manual says, "The current Serial ATA
> > interface allows up to 150 MB/s data transfer rate" (i.e. >133).
> >
> > So now to the questions:
> >
> > 1. What difficulties (if any) might I expect in setting up the SATA drives?
> > A quick search found quite a few posts where people had to mess with the
> > BIOS, add a SATA driver, etc. with this motherboard.
> >
> > 2. If I buy a SATA 3 GB/s drive, will this motherboard only give me 150 MB/s
> > anyway? In that case maybe I should just go with ATA100 or ATA133. I
> > assume either would work.
>
> The standard is *supposed* to be backward compatible, and *should*
> automatically negotiate the maximum speed that both can handle. Not
> all chipsets handle that properly, so you may need to jumper the drive
> to the reduced speed. I saw similar warnings about my VIA chipset, so
> when I bought a new drive at a local shop, I specifically asked about
> the jumper. They looked it up and gave me a copy of the jumper page
> from the manual. I first tried without the jumper, and neither the
> BIOS or Linux even saw the drive, but with the jumper it worked
> perfectly. Some older BIOSs may not boot properly from SATA drives,
> so you may need to keep the older drives for booting.
>
If your BIOS won't boot from the SATA drive, you can get a PCI SATA controller card from newegg.com for about $30 USD. Of course you need
to make sure the drivers for that controller are included in Lenny -- I usually consult the customer reviews to find that info.
-Rob
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