Ribbon/Parallel/PATA to SATA: Anyone had to do this?

[Coidzor]

I'm stuck with a PATA hard drive that has information that I can't get through other means and there is no longer a computer that is compatible with such that I have access to.

Since the hard drive still has a not-insignificant capacity despite its age, I figured I'd look into the possibility of retaining use of the harddrive in addition to ripping the information off of it.

I'm doing some preliminary research to even see if adaptors exist, as, well, hardware is not my forte as I last studied up on it when I was like... 8...

Anyone done either of those things here in the playground?

[TSGames]

Given the low data transfer rate of the PATA, I would strongly recommend using it only for backup purposes. You will most likely be disappointed if you rely on it as a main source of data storage.

That said, it's both easy and cheap to obtain a PATA to SATA converter.

[factotum]

Given the low data transfer rate of the PATA, I would strongly recommend using it only for backup purposes.

PATA topped out at 133Mb/sec, which is about as fast as the fastest non-SSD drives can transfer data anyway, so most of the additional SATA bandwidth is unused. So long as he's not intending to have his main OS installation on this drive I don't see why he can't use it just fine.

[TSGames]

PATA topped out at 133Mb/sec, which is about as fast as the fastest non-SSD drives can transfer data anyway, so most of the additional SATA bandwidth is unused. So long as he's not intending to have his main OS installation on this drive I don't see why he can't use it just fine.

I agree that 133Mb/s would be fine. However, this is a theoretical maximum and should not be relied on for practical use. A general rule of thumb is to expect between half and two thirds of the theoretical max for daily use.

[Whoracle]

PATA topped out at 133Mb/sec, which is about as fast as the fastest non-SSD drives can transfer data anyway, so most of the additional SATA bandwidth is unused. So long as he's not intending to have his main OS installation on this drive I don't see why he can't use it just fine.

SATA2 and 3 would like to have a word with you, Sir :) 300/600 MB/sec, and at least SATA2 is widely available nowadays.

That being said:
30€, external PATA case, and you're set.

[Rawhide]

SATA2 and 3 would like to have a word with you, Sir :) 300/600 MB/sec, and at least SATA2 is widely available nowadays.

He said that the drives fail to reach even the speed of PATA. This is a fact I haven't verified with recent drives, but one I would be willing to believe, as the last time I used PATA drives, they were arguing about how ATA 133 was useless and you only needed ATA 100. ATA 133 never really caught on, and most drive companies capped out at ATA 100. Though, I did see one drive advertised as ATA 150, and apparently there was an ATA 167 standard.

So, therefore, if drives still fail to make use of the speeds of ATA 133, as he claimed, then the extra speeds of SATA you mentioned are absolutely useless and wasted (which is what he said).


However, that said, there are many factors that go into the speed of a drive and the data transfer from the drive, not just the general interface type. That being PATA tells me that the drive is very old and, as such, is not likely to be up to par with more recent drives (and as it is so old, I definitely would not trust it with data I do not have stored elsewhere).


And finally, yes, there are external drive cases that use the PATA interface, but there are also PATA to SATA converters for use inside the computer. Which you use is up to you.

[Whoracle]

I was pointing out that Non-SSDs don't top out at 133 MB/sec, without even going for exotics like 15k RPM SAS drives or the like.

Also, I'd recommend an external case simply because you can use the internal slots for faster drives, since USB is slow enough, and just use the ATA blob as a big dumb storage container.

Also, sine the PATA drive is liekly a bit on the old side, it'd be better to just use it and spin it up when you actually NEED to, so it'll last longer. Granted, back in the day drives were tougher to kill than today, but to "waste" a SATA slot on your mainboard when USB will suffice AND extend the lifetime of the disk is something I'd advise against.

Of course, it's up to him. Just something to keep in the back of the head.

[Rawhide]

I was pointing out that Non-SSDs don't top out at 133 MB/sec, without even going for exotics like 15k RPM SAS drives or the like.

No, your post didn't say that. Your post only addressed the possible data transfer rates, not the rates that the drives actually transfer data at.


Also, it would appear that they do top out below ATA 133. From The Wiki (bold mine):

As of April 2010 the fastest 10,000 RPM SATA mechanical hard disk drives could transfer data at maximum (not average) rates of up to 157 MB/s, which is beyond the capabilities of the older PATA/133 specification and also exceeds a SATA 1.5 Gbit/s link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA

[Erloas]

PATA topped out at 133Mb/sec, which is about as fast as the fastest non-SSD drives can transfer data anyway, so most of the additional SATA bandwidth is unused. So long as he's not intending to have his main OS installation on this drive I don't see why he can't use it just fine.

I didn't think this was true so I decided to look it up. And according to Wikipedia a 133MB/sec PATA interface is just under what a modern hard drive can do.

As of 2010, a typical 7,200 rpm desktop hard drive has a sustained "disk-to-buffer" data transfer rate up to 1,030 Mbits/sec.[87]

Changing MB/sec to Mbits/sec is of course a multiple of 8, so 133MB is 1064Mb.
That is of course a typical drive in sustained data transfer. So peak rates are going to be higher, and some higher end hard drives are going to be higher. The cache on the hard drive is going to be much faster and that is the primary reason for them putting cache in the first place, so that they can get around the relatively slow speeds of drives. There is also a fair amount of overhead in data being transfered as well as data/requests being sent to the drive which all go over the same signal lines.

The other big issue with PATA is that at least 2 drives could be on the same bus at the same time (the typical computer had 2 cables (for 4 drives total), I'm not sure if they were the same bus or not) so if you had two drives on the same cable they would be sharing that same 133MB/s.

As for SSDs, the bulk of the consumer drives are now around 400-500MB/s read rates.

[factotum]

I don't see any of that disproving what I said. Note I specifically specified "non-SSD" because I know that SSDs have silly fast transfer rates (heck, even the pretty clanky 32Gb one I have in this ancient laptop is fast enough to saturate the available 150Mbyte/sec SATA1 bandwidth). Yes, the on-board drive cache will make a difference, but usually only for accessing lots of very small bits of data--streaming a movie or copying lots of data from one location to another, for example, will be relying on the peak transfer rate of the drive hardware, which is barely enough to saturate ATA/133.

The main point that *is* relevant is Rawhide saying that an older drive is likely to be generally slower than a new one regardless of what interface it uses--even then, though, I doubt the performance will be significantly lower than a modern drive of similar capacity; spinning rust is one of the few areas where computers have been slow to develop over the years.

[Whoracle]

No, your post didn't say that. Your post only addressed the possible data transfer rates, not the rates that the drives actually transfer data at.


Also, it would appear that they do top out below ATA 133. From The Wiki (bold mine):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA

Yeah, SATA. As in SATA 1.0. Which is why I pointed to SATA2 and 3, which are both not neccessarily SSD drives. Also from the article you quoted:

Second generation SATA interfaces running at 3.0 Gbit/s shipped in high volume by 2010, and were prevalent in all[citation needed] SATA disk drives and most PC and server chipsets. With a native transfer rate of 3.0 Gbit/s, and taking 8b/10b encoding into account, the maximum uncoded transfer rate is 2.4 Gbit/s (300 MB/s). The theoretical burst throughput of SATA 3.0 Gbit/s is roughly double that of SATA revision 1.

Bolding mine. One of us seems to have not understood what the other is talking about, and if it's me, please go into detail. I think we might be talking past each other here.

But SATA2 and 3, which are both not neccessarily SSDs, are faster than ATA/133.

Edit: Ah, nevermind. We have to talk about actual Speed of the disks behind the bus. I had a screwup there. In that case, omit what I've been saying, since then only SAS, which isn't commonly used in consumer level systems would be faster for non-SSDs.

[Coidzor]

So if I'm understanding what I've found through amazon and google and the discussion here... a simple cable translating from one to the other will work for mounting inside the computer and the more complicated mounting/PATA to SATAcards are for turning it into more of an external hard-drive storage device then?

[TSGames]

So if I'm understanding what I've found through amazon and google and the discussion here... a simple cable translating from one to the other will work for mounting inside the computer and the more complicated mounting/PATA to SATAcards are for turning it into more of an external hard-drive storage device then?

You've pretty much got it. If you're going to mount it inside, just double check the cable length before you buy. Just an example: A six inch (15 cm for you blokes out there) cable may be good for your setup but a 12 inch (30 cm) cable may be too long and cause problems when shutting the hard drive into the case. Get the right length, make sure it's PATA to SATA, and you're good to go.

Good luck and you'll have to let us know how it turns out.

[Rawhide]

Yeah, SATA. As in SATA 1.0. Which is why I pointed to SATA2 and 3, which are both not neccessarily SSD drives. Also from the article you quoted:

Bolding mine. One of us seems to have not understood what the other is talking about, and if it's me, please go into detail. I think we might be talking past each other here.

While I see you realise what we mean now (see second half of quoted post below), I will post this for clarification. We are talking about how the speed of the drives don't go that much faster than the speed of the transfer rate of ATA 133, while you are talking about the speed of the transfer rate only.

But SATA2 and 3, which are both not neccessarily SSDs, are faster than ATA/133.

Edit: Ah, nevermind. We have to talk about actual Speed of the disks behind the bus. I had a screwup there. In that case, omit what I've been saying, since then only SAS, which isn't commonly used in consumer level systems would be faster for non-SSDs.