Stealthbomber Posted May 16, 2010 Report Share Posted May 16, 2010 DVD drive on my PC just snuffed it so I need a replacement. The one in my PC was an IDE drive although it was a pretty decent spec. Just wondering if I'll see any benefit in choosing a SATA DVD drive as a replacement? I mean, if the SATA drive can read at 48x and write at 22x will it perform the same as an IDE drive with the same spec's or will I see improved performance due to better data handling or anything else? Conversely, given that my HDD is also a SATA device, might it be better to stick with IDE for the DVD drive in order to keep each device on a seperate data bus? I know that, for example, back when I had 2 HDDs in my PC (I only have one 1TB drive now) if I wanted to copy data from one HDD to the other the data transfer rate would drop right off because, I assume, the bus was getting clogged up with information that it couldn't shift fast enough. I don't really do a lot with the DVD drive. Burn the odd music CD or data DVD but I DO often multi-task by having a movie running in a window while I'm copying stuff from my HDD to an external drive etc so it'd be annoying if the HDDs were hogging the SATA bus and causing the movie to pause of stutter. So, SATA or IDE for my new DVD drive? Link to post Share on other sites
Azulsky Posted May 16, 2010 Report Share Posted May 16, 2010 No performance gains Get a SATA if parallel cables are your pet peeve Link to post Share on other sites
aznriptide859 Posted May 16, 2010 Report Share Posted May 16, 2010 Most new buyers use SATA since some mobo's I know of don't even provide IDE slots anymore. But if your computer now already has it, just stick with IDE. Link to post Share on other sites
Renagade Posted May 16, 2010 Report Share Posted May 16, 2010 IDE still works fine. I have a SATA one myself, but that's only for two reasons. A- I don't very much like dealing with IDE cables. B- I got it for $5. Link to post Share on other sites
mattmanic Posted May 16, 2010 Report Share Posted May 16, 2010 A- I don't very much like dealing with IDE cables. +1 They're a pain in the *albartroth* if you're handling them often, I always feel like I'm gunna rip something out of somewhere whenever I unplug them. But still, there's no price difference and next to no performance difference. So really you should just get what you like the look of. Or you could got a Blu-ray drive for £30 more and find a cd-r drive on ebay for a few quid. Link to post Share on other sites
Xaccers Posted May 16, 2010 Report Share Posted May 16, 2010 SATA if you're likely to upgrade your computer in the future. Eventually IDE will be dropped completely, so would you rather have to buy a new drive in the future even though it's still running fine, or just move your drive onto a new mother board? If you're not going to upgrade your computer, and instead just buy a new one, then it doesn't matter. Link to post Share on other sites
Stealthbomber Posted May 16, 2010 Author Report Share Posted May 16, 2010 Right ho. Seems like SATA is the way to go. As I say, the only thing that was putting me off was the possibility of the data bus getting overloaded and causing choppy video etc. If nobody's heard of that happening then I'll order up a suitable SATA drive tomorrow. Link to post Share on other sites
transist Posted May 17, 2010 Report Share Posted May 17, 2010 Definitely SATA. There's no reason to buy the obsolete IDE version. Link to post Share on other sites
mattmanic Posted May 18, 2010 Report Share Posted May 18, 2010 I think I've just experienced what you were talking about with data busses getting overloaded, although this is on IDE. I'm watching Layer Cake right now, and I heard my IDE hard drive spin up from sleeping and the movie paused and skipped a little. So I guess it's possible to overload a drive controller, the slow down may have had another cause though. Link to post Share on other sites
Xaccers Posted May 19, 2010 Report Share Posted May 19, 2010 I think I've just experienced what you were talking about with data busses getting overloaded, although this is on IDE. I'm watching Layer Cake right now, and I heard my IDE hard drive spin up from sleeping and the movie paused and skipped a little. So I guess it's possible to overload a drive controller, the slow down may have had another cause though. With IDE it was always best practice to keep your hard drives on channel 0 and slower devices on channel 1. Link to post Share on other sites
Stealthbomber Posted June 13, 2010 Author Report Share Posted June 13, 2010 Another random question, although it's too late to do anything about it now... I got myself a SATA DVD drive and it seems to be working with no problems. I did realise, when I was fitting it, that the new drive doesn't have the analogue audio connector (usually a small black or white 4-pin jobbie) which runs to the mobo or your sound card. I seem to recall, absolutely ages ago, that not plugging in that cable causes some minor issues with stuff like background music in games not working etc. So far I've watched movies on it and the sound is fine, I've played games from it and I don't seem to be missing out on any audio effects and I've played music CDs with no problems. Question is, should I anticipate ANY reduced functionality because my new drive doesn't have the analogue audio output or is it totally redundant these days? Link to post Share on other sites
Renagade Posted June 13, 2010 Report Share Posted June 13, 2010 It's pretty much an older drive thing, stuff to do with when they had sound ports on disk drives, etc. Don't worry about it with the new SATA drives. Link to post Share on other sites
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