Quote:
Mac...is there an advantage to buying a SATA card vs. an ATA card?
|
I think there is, unless you have some new big ATA drives you need to use.
SATA and ATA drives are about the same price, but the SeriTek/1S2 is cheaper than an Acard 6280M which is a 2 channel ATA PCI host card.
SATA has effectivley replaced ATA now in new machines and will continue to develop.
I don't think you'd feel much if any performance advantage with SATA vs. ATA PCI hosts, but either is noticeably better than the native ATA bus.
The standard SATA data cables are much smaller than ATA ribbons and allow for better internal cooling. I know, one could always use round ATA cables, but there goes the cost again!
SATA gives you the option of using both internal and external SATA storage with something like the
SeriTek/1VE2+2
I have an Acard6280M in a B&W G3, a SeriTek/1S2 in a G4DA, and I'm about to put a SeriTek/1SE2 in my G5 so that I can run a 2-bay SATA
Burly Hotswap enclosure for backup and clients' drives.
So, if starting from scratch, I'd pick SATA over ATA.