Ide/Sata

[mfdinham]

Can anyone tell me the difference between an IDE HardDrive and a SATA Harddrive. I have an external harddrive fitted with an Ide,so if i want to upgrade to a larger one can i also use sata, not sure if there is much difference in price.

Thanks for your help

[fo3nix]

I may be wrong, but I don't think they're compatible. I think that if it's an IDE fitting, you'll need to stick with IDE.

I may be totally wrong here though, just what I thought about this stuff. I'm sure someone will confirm or correct what I just said.

[wacky racer]

Totally different. Firstly if your PC is more than a year or two old it will probably not support Serial ATA.
If you are only trying to upgrade a current drive stick to the same type.
Thirdly, upgrading a PC from IDE to SATA can be problematic under Microsoft even if the motherboard does claim to support SATA.

[dodgyshirt]

Both the data and power connections are different,although the power can be connected via an adaptor lead, so upgrading an internal HDD requires a new motherboard.

Even then, as wacky racer points out,problems can still arise. This is because Windows only has native SATA support for Nvidia-based chipset mobos. Via chipsets require the installation of drivers via a floppy etc at the stage where RAID drivers would normally be added and it is a very hit-and-miss affair.

However, if you are only referring to an external HDD connected via USB or Firewire, then this is not a problem as long as you replace both the HDD and the enclosure.Replacing just the HDD within your existing enclosure would not be possible.

Pricewise, SATA drives are now very little more than comparable-sized IDE ones.