OK, so all this building your own PC is seriously confusing!!Can anyone tell me the difference between SATA and SATA2 HD's please?I was getting 2 160GB Western Caviars (7200) which are SATA2, but now I'm wondering about getting a single Raptor (10,000) which is SATA.Also, if I use a Asus P5W, will it be possible to plug in my 3 1/5 old hard drive still?Sorry, dumb questions I know, but I've no idea where else to ask. I could do with an expert in the UK on the phone :-)Cheers in advance for any tips.

Hiya Paul.."Can anyone tell me the difference between SATA and SATA2 HD's please?I was getting 2 160GB Western Caviars (7200) which are SATA2, but now I'm wondering about getting a single Raptor (10,000) which is SATA."It is a little confusing/misleading...SATA..(AKA: SATA 150) (150mb per second data transfer rate)SATA3gb/s..(AKA: SATAII) (300mb per second data transfer rate)Now this is a little misleading!! That data transfer rate is limited buy a bunch of technical stuff that I can't begin to explain...In another nutshell...You really dont get 300mb per second data transfer rate...It's like a burst type of thing and is also limited by some busses and other technical junk I can't remember...Which equals out to the Raptors still being faster(Even though they are the SATA 150 interface) due to the 10000 RPM thingy...But the do cost some bucks...So it's all relative...If I were going with a SATA3gb/s drive..I would look at the 16mb cache version...The 3gb/s 7200 hd's with 16mb cache are pretty nice...I have been using the 250gb WD Cavier SE16's for my back-up/data storage drives...I like them allot...I am sure there are other brand names that would perform equal to/or better than those...I see some folks mentioning a Hitachi Drive...I forget which one(model)...I guess I got sorta stuck on the WD's...I still preferr the Raptors as my Primary/Gaming drive...They are snappier and more responsive than the SATA3gb/s 16mb in my opinion.."Also, if I use a Asus P5W, will it be possible to plug in my 3 1/5 old hard drive still?"Yes..There will still be an IDE interface avaliable...Here is a link to another thread where folks are discussing Raid...There is some good info there as well...We have some benchmarks using a program called HD tach...You may find it useful??http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho..._id=17988&page=Have Fun..

In a nutshell and therefore without too many explanations:SATA = 150 MB/sSATA2 = 300 MB/sAs explained above these are theoretical maximums. You'd need a really large disk I/O operation to even come close to those figures and they obviously don't matter much for the rather short read operations typical for FS and other games.So what still matters most are RPM, cache size and - to some extent - the transfer protocol. Regarding the latter SATA2 has an advantage over SATA: native command queueing or NCQ. If you can get this to work between the HDD, the NCQ-enabled driver and the OS you might get some speed gains. Might. Some.But any advantage you might get there will overall still be blown away by the Raptor with its 10000 RPM, so if you can afford that... maybe two of 'em in RAID-0... sweetness.Regards,http://www.bremmekamp.com/img/misc/avsim.jpg

Hi Paul, If you don't mind a slightly noisier drive when it's writing/reading, like a fast feel, want to outperform any SATA2 HD on the market, hmmm, what else? :-) Seriously, 10000rpm Raptors are great! :-) OTOH, on the 7200rpm front (IMHO) WDs lag behind and i.e. haven't improved their seek times. AFAIK, right now, only Seagate and Samsung offer full SATA2 drives through their entire SATA2 product ranges. Others still make use of PATA --> SATA bridge-chips (note: ignoring to which degree/this is changing now). Somehow, 7200 WD's disks got stuck at 13.x ms seek times. The 3 previously mentioned fabricates 'do' ca 10-11.5 millisecond searches. In some cases, even under 10ms. Raptors take this number down to ca 8ms. My recommendations for 7200 SATA2 HDs: Seagate (tech leader/fast), Samsung (cool & quiet/tech/fast), Hitachi (very good seek times/good overall drive performance despite SATA bridge-chip). It's unknown in which timeframe Maxtor will be Seagate tech (Seagate 'takeovered' Maxtor). Right now, Maxtor seems to be behind the 3 a.m. The 16MB Raptor is native SATA(1) and the 8MB used a PATA --> SATA bridge-chip. The difference with regard to FS itself is minimal/beyond perceivable IMHO. You'll mostly notice the difference between the two when handling a few 100MBs of data. Or if you like photo sceneries..? :-) AIM, case you don't mind a bit of trrrtrrtrrr when your reptile is crunching, enjoy the - reptile typical - snappy feel, have nothing against paying factor X per GB; go for the 150GB Raptor! :-) Get 2! ;-) Hope this adds to thoughts, kind regards Jaap Edit, please note, HD performance is also a matter of mainboard chipsets, drivers and OS-support. Windows Vista for example, will give you the highest HD-performance score - best performance too? :-) - with a RAID-0. Or for example; you'll only be able to use certain Intel drivers if you have a specific ICH8 'southbridge' chip (ICH8 vs ICH8R).

Too add to this topic...will a SATA with 16mb cache @ 10K rpm out preform a SATAII with 16mb cache and only 7200RPM for FS purpose? Put simply...which is more important the extra RPM or the transfer rate?

For MSFS, the seek time (extra RPM) is more important than the transfer rate. Given the thousands of small little BGLs and BMPs needed to load for scenery, finding each file takes longer than actually loading them - thus, seek time and drive rotation speed will play a larger part than the overall transfer speed.