Look what I woke up to this morning.

[nwg]

Is it worth getting a SATA Hard Disk over IDE? Is it possible to have both types in the computer at the same time?

I have three hard disks ready to use, two are 80GB and one is 60GB. I plan to use both 80GB. However, would it be better to use one IDE 80GB as drive C and a big SATA as drive D?

[Chewy]

I designed a bench for mine, took HP(SocStn) reauthor, crop 2hr24min
69% compression from dvdd files on one hard drive to another. can't break 9 minutes!

[mill]

Why not just two sata drives? but i think it is possible to have both, i can on mine. Im not sure how that would work if you shrink form c to d if ones sata and the others ide.im thinking you would lose the speed you gain from the sata if you did that , weres chewy?

[UncasMS]

it is possible to run ide + sata parallel
i'd go for a bigger sata-2 drive with native command queuing/ncq for really decent performance

even if your board doesnt support sata-2 i'd still go for it as the boards are downwards compatible and run the drive as a *normal* sata drive and your next system might be able to address it full throttle

[nwg]

Why not just two sata drives? but i think it is possible to have both, i can on mine

I don't have or can afford new drives now. I was just curious about the technology. I will be using one 80GB and one 300GB IDE HD.

The board is SATA 2.

[mill]

Sorry

[nwg]

Sorry

Why are you sorry?

If I had the money (all spent on a nice case, mobo and processor), I would get SATA drives.

[mill]

I just Didnt know what else to say.

[nwg]

I should be building the PC this weekend.

The final specs are.

Aspire X Q-Pak case
Asrock 939NF4G-SATA 2 Motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 3700
2GB Kingston DDR400 RAM
1 x Maxtor 80GB Drive C
1 x Maxtor 300GB Drive D
Trust Dolby Digital 5.1 511 Sound Card (still to arrive)
1 x PCI 5 port USB 2.0 card (to a total of 8 USB 2.0 and 2 USB 1.0)

I will be using onboard graphics to start with (nVidia Geforce 6100). I have not enough funds for a proper card atm. I don't need anything fancy anyway.

[soup]

A guy could get a size inferiority complex around here.My 320GB Western Digital & 1GB RAM is looking mighty puny.Anyway nwg the real reason I posted is I take it there is some significance to you mentioning Kingston.Could you educate me on that?BTW good luck building.

[nwg]

A guy could get a size inferiority complex around here.My 320GB Western Digital & 1GB RAM is looking mighty puny.Anyway nwg the real reason I posted is I take it there is some significance to you mentioning Kingston.Could you educate me on that?BTW good luck building.

I am going from an Athlon XP 2000 with 512 RAM so I wanted to make a big upgrade. I keep reading about better systems and it will have to last for a long time.

My main objective is to increase the time using Shrink and DVD Rebuilder.

Kingston is the make of ram. It is actually Kingston ValueRam. It was the best RAM I could find for the motherboard. I have seen bad experiences with generic cheaper ram. One time the ram fried the motherboard of a friends machine (came of ebay).

I will also be using my current beige DVD LG 4040 writer. I will be changing it to a black one in the near future. I will be sticking with LG.

This is what it will look like.

[soup]

Thanks for the info nwg,appreciated.OK plain ? what in your opinion is the best RAM then?I will have to read when I get back.

[nwg]

Thanks for the info nwg,appreciated.OK plain ? what in your opinion is the best RAM then?

I don't really know. I haven't built a computer for over two years and technology has changed so much that is has been a lot to take in. My motherboard takes DDR400 and that was the recommended RAM.

I do know that you get what you pay for. I am not going to risk this computer by saving money on RAM. It cost me a third more than other RAM.

I am doubling my RAM speed (from PC2700 to PC3200). Quadrupling my motherboard FSB speed and god knows how much more with the processor. The motherboard can also take a X2 4800 processor. That might be worth looking in the future when the processor isn't over £500 !

[UncasMS]

there are way too many different good brands for ram to give a specific answer to this question

it always depends on how much ram you want and how much money you're willing to spend on it

accroding to tomshardware:

- corsair ddr2-1000 => fastest ram money can buy these days
- patriot memory ddr2-1000 => runner up
- ocz ddr2-800 => came in 3rd

crucial ballistix is something i'd go for

[soup]

That might be worth looking in the future when the processor isn't over £500 !

Whoa that's getting up there.

there are way too many different good brands for ram to give a specific answer to this question

So I guess it is like everything else really,no real standard but it is what you can afford.