Motherboard/Hard Drive

I have a compatibility question: will this hard drive work with this motherboard? And is the first hard drive significantly better than this one?

 

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Either drive should work fine, both SATA and ATA100 are listed in the specs. The SATA drive is definitely the better of the two, though the additional cache may be the most important reason why. My understanding is that the WD Raptors are the only SATA drive that is significantly faster than the fastest ATA 100/133 drives.
But the SATA cables are nice and slim, and make for better airflow (important for cooling). If I had the cash, I'd go with the SATA. Ought to be a very nice system!

 

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Thank you very much, sir.

 

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I had a friend with SATA...and evidently his motherboard didn't support running both SATA and IDE at the same time (not sure about this, I never had access to the machine, I tried to help him over AIM but we couldn't get it to work...not that I'm surprised).

You might want to check up on that before you buy.

 

How would I go about finding that information without trial and error? The ASUS website?

http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/socket478/p4p800-d/overview.HTM

Does this tell me?

 

Though I cannot say for certain, you should be able to use both SATA and standard drives on the same motherboard at the same time. AFAIK, you have to install a driver for the SATA controller when installing Windows if you are installing your operating system to the SATA drive.

A good place to ask would be on the Overclockers.com forums, specifically in the Asus Intel motherboards subforum, http://www.ocforums.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=51 .
You'll have to register before you can post a question, but it is free. It is one of the best computer forums on the web.

 

I should guess that the drive is compatible with the motherboard, based on my experience with 2 drives and a RAID controller. Admittedly my problem wasn't too similar to yours, I had two drives I was looking at with an ATA rate of 100 (or 133) and I was looking at a controller with ATA 166.

In the end I have found that the as long as the controller "CAN" have faster transfer rates, it "Should" adjust to what ever rate your harddrive is. In my case although I purchased both ATA 166, I have one normal IDE cable which has restricted the speeds to ATA 33/66. (I just need to get a new cable, one with extra wires to deal with faster transfers)

I would suggest the usual checks when setting something, like "Have you got enough power sockets?" and "Do you have the right cables for the SATA setup?".

 

What is the difference between setting up an SATA drive and an IDE drive? What is a controller?

 

This should be of use to you, SATA explaination:
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/Serial_ATA.html

As for "Controller", it's the piece of hardware that deals with telling the overall system how to access the harddrive. Different controllers have different protocols for different cabled drives.

 

The motherboard should have an SATA controller for a single drive on it, if it supports the hardware though, correct? I need to set up the drive apparently before I install Windows. Does anyone have experience with this? Does a floppy come with the drive?

 

Hiya Idle,

A floppy should come with your motherboard for the SATA controller, so hit F6 during the Windows setup to use the disk.

Dave