SATA versus PATA - which to use for my Home Server / Vista Media Centre?

Back in "the old days" I used to build hardware on a regular basis hence was intimately familiar with the various standards and terminology. These days it's pretty rare for me to dabble in hardware hence when friends have asked me "should I get a SATA or a PATA drive" I've not really known. I remember that Parallel interfaces were generally quicker than Serial ones due to the additional paths and hence was confused when reading that Serial ATA (SATA) is supposed to be quicker than Parallel ATA (PATA).

There's a handy article on the Scan website which explains all you're likely to need to know about SATA versus PATA.

Note: Make sure you hit the "next page" button at the foot of the page to view the entire article if you find the first one interesting.

I've had a Windows XP Media Centre for four years and after initial teething problems have enjoyed a stable machine. Bug fixes to the operating system and more reliable drivers plus replacing the fans to improve system cooling solved the problems.

Even though I've been a keen advocate of Windows Vista, upgrading my media centre has remained a long over due task. The Windows XP based system works pretty well though searching by keyword for music tracks is really painful due to the size of my music collection - I've transferred all of my CD collection to the system. I certainly don't miss the days of trying to find the right CD, often finding just the empty case!

The main reason for waiting to upgrade has been my desire for a significantly larger hard disk without "breaking the bank" (spending a great deal of money) and perhaps for geeky reasons I've wanted a 1Tb disk.

Now that I understand the benefits of SATA and that the prices have dropped to a reasonable level I'm ready to go ahead with the upgrade. I could of course upgrade to Windows Vista on the existing hard disk but the existing one is over flowing and I already have an external USB drive on there too. I'd like a single primary disk in the system and use an external one purely for backups - that way I minimise the power consumption and space required.

Clearly for a Windows Home Server storage is a prime consideration too as it provides seamless access to centralised storage both locally and remotely. Wouldn't it be nice if the Home Server and Media Centre could co-exist on the same physical machine? Sadly I don't think I can run Home Server as a virtual machine and while I could move the Vista Media Center to a virtual machine I'd loose the video hardware acceleration and sound card support by doing so.

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• Anonymous
  August 09, 2007
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