View Full Version : New Type Of Hard Drives?
Garrett
17-08-2002, 10:23 AM
Anybody know anything about the new format of Hard Drive to come in next year. It is to be serial instead if parallel which is suppose to be quicker. The question will it use the same HD or will the HD to be special serial ones to make use of the system? I also take it as read that to use serial, you will need a new MB to make use of it.
JohnG
17-08-2002, 11:41 AM
The new format is being labeled "serial ATA" at the moment. Current IDE connectors are parallel and so are limited to the speed and bandwidth that can be got out of them - so the switch to serial ATA is inevitable.
Have a look here for FAQ's:-
http://www.serialata.org/faqs.html
JohnG
17-08-2002, 11:51 AM
There's more interesting reading here:-
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,102252,00.asp
It looks to me as if you'll be able to buy an add in PCI card to provide the serial ATA interface and you may even be able to use old ATA 100 hard disks - but they will be slower
a parallel connection is quicker than serial connection in PC terms! Due to the way the data is transferred, serial is asynchronous and parallel is synchronous. with a synchronous connection, the data is sent to the device, and then checked to make sure the data that was received was free of errors. Where as synchronous connections, data is just sent down the line to the device. Ever been using windows, printed a document, and windows say the document has printed, but there's nothing come out of the printer?? Well thats because the parallel port does not check for errors, or even if the data go to the printer!!
JohnG
17-08-2002, 11:57 AM
If parallel is quicker than serial how come USB is considerably faster than parallel ??
because parallel and serial technology is about 20 years old, while usb is very recent, and uses faster chips, ect.
The serial and parallel connection on your standard PC are being phased out, along with PS/2 mouse and keyboard connections. It will all be USB or USBv2.
JohnG
17-08-2002, 12:07 PM
USB is a serial bus - which is much faster than parallel can ever go - that is why there are no new parallel chipsets etc being produced
The_blue
19-08-2002, 9:09 AM
Seagate will drop the capacity of a 60GB platter to 40GB through a technical process it calls destroking. Why demote a 60GB platter to 40GB? "Because PC makers have certain price points they want to hit," Eisman says, and smaller hard drive sizes are another way to differentiate products.
60 gig running as 40 :eek:
firmware update anyone ;)
Garrett
19-08-2002, 1:09 PM
How then does serial speed compare with RAID?
evildonut
19-08-2002, 1:34 PM
60 gig running as 40 :eek:
Nope, it means that the platters in the HD will contain 40 GB max.
e.g. 180 GB HD = ~3x60GB platters
so now it'd be 160GB = ~4x40GB platters
(anybody correct me if I'm wrong)
evildonut
19-08-2002, 1:36 PM
From Tom's Hardware Guide:
http://www6.tomshardware.com/storage/02q3/020812/index.html