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The 2.6 kernel supports SATA, meaning your kernel can read your root
filesystem fine without an initrd image. That is a plus (though not
advantageous over PATA).
When faster drives come out, you can replace your 150 with something
quicker. The cable supports up to 300. Not possible with PATA.
The price is usually only a little more than the PATA equivalent. A
minus, but a small one.
There are mobile racks that take 5 SATA drives and fit in the space of 2
CDROM bays. That's kinda cool. Not sure if they make those for PATA
drives. They probably do.
The cable routing is much cleaner. Always a plus.
It follows the trend of cabling past: the big, flat parallel cable gives
way to the single serial wire, and somehow much greater speeds are
achieved. Why is that? Does the timing and synchronization of 40
signals in tandem take more time than shooting 40 consecutive signals
down a single wire as fast as all getout? Must be the case. SATA will
only get faster, while PATA will probably not.
I don't really feel any noticeable speed increase myself with a year-old
version of one of these drives. In fact, a quick hdparm test shows the
SATA drive (/dev/hde) to be a touch slower:
root@homeserv:~# hdparm -Tt /dev/hda
/dev/hda:
Timing cached reads: 1332 MB in 2.00 seconds = 665.10 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 180 MB in 3.03 seconds = 59.36 MB/sec
root@homeserv:~# hdparm -Tt /dev/hde
/dev/hde:
Timing cached reads: 1324 MB in 2.00 seconds = 661.77 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 164 MB in 3.03 seconds = 54.10 MB/sec
root@homeserv:~# hdparm -Tt /dev/hda
/dev/hda:
Timing cached reads: 1324 MB in 2.00 seconds = 661.44 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 176 MB in 3.02 seconds = 58.19 MB/sec
root@homeserv:~# hdparm -Tt /dev/hde
/dev/hde:
Timing cached reads: 1332 MB in 2.00 seconds = 665.10 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 162 MB in 3.01 seconds = 53.88 MB/sec
This compares a Samsung 160GB PATA drive with the SATA version of the
same drive. The SATA drive is a 150. If I were to plug in a faster
SATA drive into this same machine, I'd be curious to see how the numbers
change.
There are 2 ways to access these drives in the 2.6 kernel: SCSI or
libata. Maybe one is faster than the other? Haven't played around
with it really.
Until they start making them faster, I don't see them as any better than
PATA. They're a fine way to get more drives plugged into your machine,
as they do not take up nodes on the IDE cables. In a single-drive box
it makes no difference, and it comes down to price.
Carlos
On Sun, 14 Aug 2005, Stewart B. Lone wrote:
Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2005 18:00:38 -0400
From: Stewart B. Lone <v592653589793238@verizon.net>
To: Philadelphia Linux User's Group Discussion List
<plug@lists.phillylinux.org>
Subject: [PLUG] hard drives
Am building my first put it together yourself PC. I would invite any
opinions on whether or not the SATA drives are worth the premium in price.
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