SATA hard disk? PATA hard disk? What are these?

[TrailsofLife]

After the recently mishap(my iMac G5 died), I decided to invest in some backup system or something like dat. My knowledge for computer is limited and back dated. I only know SCSI and the later IDE harddisk.

So a few days ago, I went to shop for harddisks and hard disk casings, mainly firewire. And I encounter unknown lingo from the SLS shops, PATA and SATA. What are these? I want to get 2pcs of 160gb harddisks and casing to do a double backup every time I finish some files. So which ones to get? How do I know if the casings I get can be used with these harddisks? Can these be used with both Mac and PC?

anyone care to advise or recommend?

Thanks!
Max 2.8

 

[smtan24]

After the recently mishap(my iMac G5 died), I decided to invest in some backup system or something like dat. My knowledge for computer is limited and back dated. I only know SCSI and the later IDE harddisk.

So a few days ago, I went to shop for harddisks and hard disk casings, mainly firewire. And I encounter unknown lingo from the SLS shops, PATA and SATA. What are these? I want to get 2pcs of 160gb harddisks and casing to do a double backup every time I finish some files. So which ones to get? How do I know if the casings I get can be used with these harddisks? Can these be used with both Mac and PC?

anyone care to advise or recommend?

Thanks!
Max 2.8

Parallel ATA (PATA) Hard Drive Interfaces (commonly use on most computers)
Serial ATA (May or may not be supported. Newer system will probably support)

 

[TrailsofLife]

So which one? Just went to HWZ forum....totally lost! Those geeks damn Cheem.....

 

[weilong05]

Sata & Pata uses different connectors.

 

[smtan24]

So which one? Just went to HWZ forum....totally lost! Those geeks damn Cheem.....

Parallel ATA are the hard drives with the ribbon cables.

SATA are the hard drive have connectors that look like the one bellow. They are suppose to be faster.

 

[dreamerz]

pata is oso known as ide...its the older kind of hdd connection...now ppl use sata/sata2...coz its faster..

 

[ozora]

Parallel ATA are the hard drives with the ribbon cables.

SATA are the hard drive have connectors that look like the one bellow. They are suppose to be faster.

Yo bro, your SATA picture is actually a SATA power connector. The actual SATA cable looks like this:

http://www.atechfabrication.com/images/htpc/products/SATA_Cable_data.jpg

 

[ozora]

To choose between SATA or PATA depends on what purpose you are using it for.

If you are using for backup (meaning you already have a working system with HDD), then I suggest you buy PATA and get those USB2.0 or firewire enclosure. Go to Storage Studio in Sim Lim Square. They have many different types of enclosure. If you are looking at using 2 hdd for backup, you can consider those 2 bay enclosure that had RAID mirroring features. If all these RAID stuffs are too cheem for you, then just get 2 HDD with 2 enclosures to backup your files.

If you are buying the HDD to be used a bootup drive for your system, then consider SATA if your motherboard supports it.

Hope this helps!

 

[TrailsofLife]

To choose between SATA or PATA depends on what purpose you are using it for.

If you are using for backup (meaning you already have a working system with HDD), then I suggest you buy PATA and get those USB2.0 or firewire enclosure. Go to Storage Studio in Sim Lim Square. They have many different types of enclosure. If you are looking at using 2 hdd for backup, you can consider those 2 bay enclosure that had RAID mirroring features. If all these RAID stuffs are too cheem for you, then just get 2 HDD with 2 enclosures to backup your files.

If you are buying the HDD to be used a bootup drive for your system, then consider SATA if your motherboard supports it.

Hope this helps!

Thanks! Its slightly clearer now...:thumbsup:

 

[Firefox]

Thanks! Its slightly clearer now...:thumbsup:

Go to Storage Studio and look for the IOI 2 disk enclosure. It supports RAID 1 so that you can basically mirror the disks. It has a Firewire connection (which I find faster than USB 2.0) for use with Macs as well as USB 2.0 for use with PC's (not all PC's have Firewire).

 

[Horsba85]

iMac G5 runs using a SATA hard drive. You can physically replace your dead drive by opening the screws at the bottom of the iMac and removing the back cover. 160GB or 250GB should be good sizes. You can purchase 2, one to install in your iMac while the other to stick it into an external enclosure.

The thing with externals is that they can be really hot so the best bet would be to purchase one with a built in fan to take away the excess heat coming from the external drive. Although USB 2.0 has a higher top speed of 480mbps, it fluctuates. Thus, the constant and stable 400mbps speed offer by FireWire provides the best performance and it is the one that you should get.

Macintosh computers run on a HFS+ format while Windows computers run using NTFS. The only common ground between them both is FAT32. You have to format the external drive to FAT32 if you want it to be readable/writable between both PCs and Macintoshs. Although FAT32 is workable up to 2 TB, dependent on cluser size, it would be sufficient to partition your external drive into multiply logical drives of about 30GB.

Personally, I would rather keep the external drive as HFS+ format and should I need to transfer some files to my Windows PC, I would copy it onto my iMac and network the file across.

Bear in mind that some casings are cheap and thus, their quality may not be good. Some of them are able to support up to a certain drive size limit. You must check with the retailer to see whether the casing can support the size of your drive. I've also had personal experiences with exernal drives that are unable to shut down properly. The hard drive continues running (active) even though you have ejected it, the read/write head may still be somewhere loose inside and not locked. Turning it off using an on/off switch might jam the head and scratch the surface of the disk platters.

Knowing this, I try not to off/on my external drive frequently within a day. I also recommend not shaking the drive while it is turned on as well as not leaving it running over a week without turning it off.

Just my 2 cents based on what I know.

 

[yanyewkay]

Go to Storage Studio and look for the IOI 2 disk enclosure. It supports RAID 1 so that you can basically mirror the disks. It has a Firewire connection (which I find faster than USB 2.0) for use with Macs as well as USB 2.0 for use with PC's (not all PC's have Firewire).

any idea how much the enclosure costs dreamslacker?

 

[TrailsofLife]

Thanks guys for the tips. :thumbsup:

Actually, I've heard of raid. What exactly is RAID?

 

[knoxknocks]

Thanks guys for the tips. :thumbsup:

Actually, I've heard of raid. What exactly is RAID?

RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks.

It's actually just using redundant disks for protection. Mirroring i.e. RAID1 is where one hard drive mirrors the contents of the other through a RAID controller. There are also other RAID levels like RAID0, RAID5, RAID10 etc

 

[Static]

RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks.

It's actually just using redundant disks for protection. Mirroring i.e. RAID1 is where one hard drive mirrors the contents of the other through a RAID controller. There are also other RAID
levels like RAID0, RAID5, RAID10 etc

Incase one hardisk crash, the other raid hardisk will take over and system still functions

 

[mikey7]

My G5 uses SATA.

You should get 2 large SATA hard drives and mirror them using RAID 1. There should be a selection in the BIOS to set this up. The hardware will write to two drives, but your MAC will only see one. When one drive fails, it will continue running using the 2nd drive.
This will not help you if you accidently delete files. It will only help if drive fails.

 

[smtan24]

Yo bro, your SATA picture is actually a SATA power connector. The actual SATA cable looks like this:

http://www.atechfabrication.com/images/htpc/products/SATA_Cable_data.jpg

Sorry for the mistake. Have corrected it.

 

[Firefox]

any idea how much the enclosure costs dreamslacker?

My mistake. That enclosure only supports Striping (Raid 0) and JBOD. It's $179 for either the Firewire 800 enclosure supporting PATA drives or the USB 2.0 + Firewire 400 enclosure supporting SATA drives.
For the Firewire 800 & USB 2.0 enclosure supporting SATA drives, it's $209.

Too shag cannot think already... :bsmilie:

I do strictly remember that they had an older model which supported either RAID 0 or RAID 1 but only had Firewire 400 + USB 2.0. Some guy running a studio in Macpherson (not a CS member) bought it for use with his studio's PC's and Mac G5 Towers because his Iomega unit couldn't work properly with Mac's that went into standby. Saw him setup on the spot with his 17" G4 Powerbook (beautiful lappie).

 

[TrailsofLife]

RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks.

It's actually just using redundant disks for protection. Mirroring i.e. RAID1 is where one hard drive mirrors the contents of the other through a RAID controller. There are also other RAID levels like RAID0, RAID5, RAID10 etc

I see, thanks....Dun think need a RAID, just a simple mass storage should be able to do the trick.

So There are SATA harddisk casing as well in Storage Studio?

 

[ortega]

My G4 has got 2 160GB internal HDD set up as a RAID 1 Mirror

so just buy 2 internal HDD and use your MacOS and set them up as RAID 1
Auto backup, and when 1 HDD fails, just replace it and the data will be copied automatically to the new HDD.
and actually cheaper, because you don't need to buy the external casing

1 question for RAID experts, do I need to use the same HDD for RAID 0 Stripping?
Can I use different capacity HDDs?