New HDD

[jimm57]

Hi All,

My 60 Gig ATA drive  is filling up, its about 3/4 full, thanks to all the great stuff I have from Sim V and FS9 and a bunch of other apps. I want to buy a new bigger drive, like 200 Gig, but want to know what the difference is between Ultra ATA and SATA drives, and the advantage. Seems the Ultra ATA's are a little cheaper, but thats not really an issue. I want better performance as we all do.

Also, I was reading the Power Supply thread, and wonder if my 350 W is OK. I have 2 DVD drives, and 2 HDD's, nVidea 6600 video, plus a case fan and of course a processor fan. Running a 3 gig P4, 1 Gig ram, Win XP home ver.

Thanks for the input.

[GeForce]

Ultra ATA is a type of PATA cable. They're the older interfaces, big flat cables.

SATA is the newer interface, much faster data transfer and small cables.
     
(Big grey one is PATA, red one is SATA)

If your motherboard supports SATA, use that as it allows better case airfow, aside from the faster data transfer.

You should maybe also consider upgrading the PSU. 350W is going to be borderline. Also if it's a generic PSU, if it fails it could easily take the rest of your system with it.

If you want a recommendation on that front, my vote goes to the Hiper Type-R 580W. Make sure you get the black one

Jon

[congo]

Also be aware that all SATA is not equal, there are 2 or 3 different standards, but they are backwards compatible. Don't buy a slower drive than your system supports.

As GeForce said above, 350w is about the limit on your rig, if you have any odd issues, suspect the PSU.

[cheesegrater]

Use, a PSU calculator to find out roughly how much wattage you need.

http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp

[jimm57]

Wow! Thats a great PSU calculator. It says I only need 254 W, so I guess Im OK for now. Thanks.

About the SATA drives, my Mobo does support SATA, but can I run one SATA (master) and one Ultra ATA (slave) at the same time?

Excuse my ignorance, but after I format the SATA drive, could I just drag all the stuff (Op system and apps)  to the SATA, and then make it the master? Seems possible to me.

Thanks for all the help. The folks on SimV forums ROCK!

[GeForce]

Yes you can have a SATA master and a uDMA slave.

You can't drag & drop the OS. You're going to have to reinstall that onto the new SATA drive.

Make sure ONLY the SATA drive is plugged in when you are installing. Plug the uDMA one in afterwards.

Jon

[cheesegrater]

I don't usually trust these calculators and this one confirms what I thought. I tried it and learned that I needed only 278W to run my computer .

That's why you have to add surge compensation and capacitor aging! For example when you turn on your computer the hard drive uses about 3 times more power than when it is up and running. When you don't take these things into account you're gonna get a lower number.

Wattage doesn't tell you much. When shopping you should look at the rails. However, the calculator gives you a rough idea in what range you should be shopping in.