Sata, Serillel? Wtf?

Herro · 18th February 2003, 9:32 AM

I keet reading all these reviews on serillel, and they look great, but if a tiny little pcb can convert ATA to SATA and back again, why havent we seen these Serielell adapters used on both ends of a Serial ATA cable long before now? I mean seriously dosent it defeat the purpose of a SATA controller? COuldnt anyone just get two Serillel adapters, a Sata cable and connect their drive in the old parralell connectors on the mobo and the HDD, becasue afaik, the only reason i would bother goiong SATA is the size of the cable, has anyone had any experience with this?

kasi · 18th February 2003, 4:49 PM

I think the Serillel adapter only works one way. This is because of the chip used. The Marvell chip has a both a serialiser and deserialiser function so you would need a card with this chip to connect a Serial ATA device to the PATA IDE connectors on your motherboard. I have seen 2 such cards although they are not available in Australia yet. The first is a for a single device and is a SOYO Serial ATA Riser Card. This can be used 3 different ways as explained here:
http://www.directron.com/satakit.html
The second is for 2 SATA devices and is a Sunix IDE Host to SATA Bridge SABR2000HH or SABR2000HV (horizontal or vertical). Have a look down the page here for more info:
http://www.sunix.com.tw/menus/index.htm
I have spoken to a place in Australia that sells Sunix products and they have stated that they they are waiting for C-Tick approval before they start importing and selling them although it seems they aren't in a great hurry until SATA hard disks are more widely available.

Sky-Hawk · 18th February 2003, 9:36 PM

I also believe that SATA has the ability to run at a lot faster speeds than it's PATA counter part.

At the moment it has a max of ATA150 (which isnt much faster than ur ATA 133) but in the future, there is the possibility of it running at about ATA600 and so forth.

Please correct me if i'm wrong. This is like when PATA was first introduced (millions of years ago :P) - ATA33... then ATA66... then ATA100... now ATA133!!!

-Sky

chainbolt · 19th February 2003, 1:51 AM

A SATA disk as such is not "faster" becuase of the SATA interface. To what extend the 150 MB/sec SATA interface is utilized entirely depends on the density of the platers, the firmware, the processor, and the mechanics (spindle rotation). Transfer rates with the best HDD you get currently are maybe 50 MB/sec, not even a ATA 100 interface is challanged by this.

unix · 20th February 2003, 7:00 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Sky-Hawk
I also believe that SATA has the ability to run at a lot faster speeds than it's PATA counter part.

At the moment it has a max of ATA150 (which isnt much faster than ur ATA 133) but in the future, there is the possibility of it running at about ATA600 and so forth.

Please correct me if i'm wrong. This is like when PATA was first introduced (millions of years ago :P) - ATA33... then ATA66... then ATA100... now ATA133!!!

-Sky

ATA133 Doesn't even have significant advantages of ATA100 to justify forking out extra just for it. Just a sales gimmick I reckon.

Shado · 20th February 2003, 1:26 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Herro
I keet reading all these reviews on serillel, and they look great, but if a tiny little pcb can convert ATA to SATA and back again, why havent we seen these Serielell adapters used on both ends of a Serial ATA cable long before now? I mean seriously dosent it defeat the purpose of a SATA controller? COuldnt anyone just get two Serillel adapters, a Sata cable and connect their drive in the old parralell connectors on the mobo and the HDD, becasue afaik, the only reason i would bother goiong SATA is the size of the cable, has anyone had any experience with this?

- They haven't been used long before now, as SATA is a relatively new standard.

- AFAIK most SATA controllers are just parallel controllers with a chip that converts them to SATA (I think only intels granite bay chipset is the exception).

- There is no point in running a parallel drive in this way unless you want to put it on the same controller as a SATA drive. You will probably see a performance loss rather than gain.

- The size of the cable is probably the least of SATA's benefits. The biggest being the increased error checking (and the addition of error correction), as well as less likelyhood of errors due to loss of synchronisation.

Sky-Hawk · 20th February 2003, 8:49 PM

At the moment we are in a transistion period. If you are looking for a SATA solution to keep you going for 6 years, right now it's probably not worth it. WHat you probably should be looking for is a solution during the transition, and once it is complete, a more longer term solution. If that means buying a SATA controller and running SATA drives until SATA is standard on all mainboards or using a serielle (sp?) connector then go for it. Thats my 10c

-Sky

18th February 2003, 9:32 AM	#1
Herro Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Brisbane Posts: 742	Sata, Serillel? Wtf? I keet reading all these reviews on serillel, and they look great, but if a tiny little pcb can convert ATA to SATA and back again, why havent we seen these Serielell adapters used on both ends of a Serial ATA cable long before now? I mean seriously dosent it defeat the purpose of a SATA controller? COuldnt anyone just get two Serillel adapters, a Sata cable and connect their drive in the old parralell connectors on the mobo and the HDD, becasue afaik, the only reason i would bother goiong SATA is the size of the cable, has anyone had any experience with this?

18th February 2003, 4:49 PM	#2
kasi Member Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Central Coast NSW Posts: 1,241	I think the Serillel adapter only works one way. This is because of the chip used. The Marvell chip has a both a serialiser and deserialiser function so you would need a card with this chip to connect a Serial ATA device to the PATA IDE connectors on your motherboard. I have seen 2 such cards although they are not available in Australia yet. The first is a for a single device and is a SOYO Serial ATA Riser Card. This can be used 3 different ways as explained here: http://www.directron.com/satakit.html The second is for 2 SATA devices and is a Sunix IDE Host to SATA Bridge SABR2000HH or SABR2000HV (horizontal or vertical). Have a look down the page here for more info: http://www.sunix.com.tw/menus/index.htm I have spoken to a place in Australia that sells Sunix products and they have stated that they they are waiting for C-Tick approval before they start importing and selling them although it seems they aren't in a great hurry until SATA hard disks are more widely available. Last edited by kasi; 18th February 2003 at 4:56 PM.

18th February 2003, 9:36 PM	#3
Sky-Hawk Member Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Gold Coast, Australia Posts: 147	I also believe that SATA has the ability to run at a lot faster speeds than it's PATA counter part. At the moment it has a max of ATA150 (which isnt much faster than ur ATA 133) but in the future, there is the possibility of it running at about ATA600 and so forth. Please correct me if i'm wrong. This is like when PATA was first introduced (millions of years ago :P) - ATA33... then ATA66... then ATA100... now ATA133!!! -Sky __________________ This is my sig, don't wear it out!

20th February 2003, 8:49 PM	#7
Sky-Hawk Member Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Gold Coast, Australia Posts: 147	At the moment we are in a transistion period. If you are looking for a SATA solution to keep you going for 6 years, right now it's probably not worth it. WHat you probably should be looking for is a solution during the transition, and once it is complete, a more longer term solution. If that means buying a SATA controller and running SATA drives until SATA is standard on all mainboards or using a serielle (sp?) connector then go for it. Thats my 10c -Sky __________________ This is my sig, don't wear it out!

19th February 2003, 1:51 AM	#4
chainbolt Little member Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: Tokyo Posts: 76,384	A SATA disk as such is not "faster" becuase of the SATA interface. To what extend the 150 MB/sec SATA interface is utilized entirely depends on the density of the platers, the firmware, the processor, and the mechanics (spindle rotation). Transfer rates with the best HDD you get currently are maybe 50 MB/sec, not even a ATA 100 interface is challanged by this.