Hard drive lingo

What do these mean? What's the difference? Anything I'm missing? Point me to a thread that already has this info?

SATA-150
PATA-100

Whats the number that comes after those mean?

What would run faster, more efficent, better? A SATA 150 5400 rpm or a PATA 100 7200rpm? Heat issues?

 

Hmmmmn,

SATA-150 is Serial ATA
PATA is Parallel ATA

These refer to the bus speed and interface. Most newer laptops are SATA, you need an adapter (at least) to connect a parallel drive to SATA (if you even can. SATA is generally faster, and SATA 150 would be faster than SATA 100 so the top interface is faster.

Don't know about the last question - faster drive on slower interface??

 

On the last question. I would have thought that the 5400 rpm, would be slightly faster. It has a larger transfer rate of 150 Mb/s, but then again, it depends on how much data it can recieve in the first place, due to the slower spin rate. Difficult one, that.

 

So, I researched it a bit, and the 150 means 150MB/s and the 100 means 100MB/s. Right? Do they make SATA-150 7200rpm drives? How easy are the physical aspects of a harddrive upgrade in a laptop? Is it like ram? Just plug it in?

And, how easy is it to wipe a drive clean and do a fresh install? Is there a tutorial somewhere in these forums? Last time I tried it, it formatted partially and then froze, and I spent $200 to get it (a pentium 233 mhz. Top notch at the time. Ouch.) fixed.

What else do I need to know?

 

Also, for those new to all this:
SATA 150
or PATA 100
are properties of the system (motherboard specifically). A desktop might have both, but a laptop will likely be one or the other. You can't change this without getting a different laptop.

5400 or 7200 RPM is a HD property and you very well could have an option for one or the other (or in a dual-drive laptop), possibly both in the same laptop.

Normally you install SATA drives in SATA laptops and PATA drives in PATA laptops, but you may be able to install a PATA drive in a SATA laptop with the corect adapter. (unsure).

 

Right

They definitely make SATA 7200 Rpm drives, depends on the laptop whether it will support SATA-150 or something else, and you are stuck with that.
What laptop are we discussing?

Yes and no. It's easier on a desktop, or if you have two drive bays on the laptop. Installing the drive is just a matter of removing the old one and connecting the cables and the new drive. Getting the OS and data on the new drive is something of a pain, but can be done.

Your best bet would be to ghost an image of the old drive and install that on the new one. See http://ghost.radified.com/ for ghost info and http://ghost.radified.com/ghost_1a.htm for info on getting a copy - I recommend the Systemworks 2003 route.

Easy enough if you have all the drivers for the system.

There are ones stickied in the Dell and HP forums.

Will take you awhile to read up on Ghost.

 

Damnit! I just sold ghost that came packaged free with norton antivirus on ebay! 8). Oh well, I haven't even ordered the computer yet.

I'm comparing an asus s96j and a ms 1039 on ibuypower.com

The ms 1039 has:
AMD turion 64 MT 40 2.2 ghz 1mb cache
2GB (ddr 400) PC 3200 ram
256 MB ATI x1600 graphics card
60 GB 7200 rpm PATA-100 hard drive
cd-rw/dvd-rw
some more gravy

The asus s96j has:
Intel core duo t2600 2.16 Ghz 677 FSB with 2MB cache
2GB DDR2-667 PC 5300 ram
256 MB X1600 graphics
60 GB 5400 rpm SATA 150 hard drive
cd-rw/dvd-rw
similar gravy

 

I don't see the MS-1039 on there, but the ASUS has a better processor and likely better build quality.

Get it from here and you won't need Ghost: http://www.powernotebooks.com/specs/PowerPro/a2-24.php

 

Sorry, its called the Battalion-101 CLS Turbo on their site.

I'll check out the powernotebooks thing but I think it'll be a couple hundred more expensive.

 

I don't know if it will work, but that's when you call or E-mail them and say "I would really like to buy the Model XXX from you, but I can get it for a couple hundred less from company Y, can you match them???"

 

Yea, 2014 on powernotebooks compared to 1568 on ibuypower for the asus.

 

Hmmm. I'll try that out. I like powernotebook's customer service way better than the crap ratings from ibuypower. But I doubt they'll give me 25% off...

 

Can't hurt to ask - otherwise, you call ibuypower and tell them PowerNotebooks will sell it to me with a 7200 RPM HD, but I want to buy from you, but I shouldn't need to tell you this . . .

 

Thanks man.

 

Just for the record, there's no real performance advantage in choosing SATA over PATA. Yes, the bus is faster, but a 7200 RPM drive can only transfer around 50-70MB/S at peak.
The PATA interface can easily handle that.

SATA has a couple of other advantages though, mostly to do with simpler cabling and a couple of rarely-used (in desktop/notebook systems, anyway) features, and the extra bandwidth does come in handy if you plan to run RAID.

But performance-wise, no difference. But as said above, make sure you get a disk that's actually supported on your computer. Laptops tend to run only one of the two buses, while desktops *usually* support both.

[edit:]
Oops, fixed a typo. PATA => SATA

 

Jalf is right... We are talking about the interface and nothing to do with hard drive speeds.

Take this analogy: Railway tracks is the interface (PATA or SATA) and the train is the hard drive. The tracks maybe capable of handling trains up to speeds of 300MPH but It doesn't mean the train can travel that fast so the bandwidth is not utilised to its full capacity.

 

Thanks guys, I think I settled on a 7200rpm SATA so that train better be moving fast. Its only a few bucks more neway on some systems I'm looking at.