Upgrade to SATA...worth considering my mobo?

[andreadebiase]

hi guys, have been away from the PC world for some time. Reason is that once i upgrade i keep what i have for a while and only after 1-2 years i get back to upgrading my box and in the meantime i get out of the loop.
Anyway this is my question.

I have a MSI KT6Delta mobo with a 30GB hard drive ATA133 (the very old type) which i want to upgrade. I know that my mobo supports SATA with the following spec:

• Serial ATA/150 controller integrated in VT8237.
- Up to 150MB/sec transfer speeds.
- Can connect up to two Serial ATA drives.
- Supports RAID 0 or RAID 1.

Now i found on newegg a SAMSUNG SpinPoint P Series HD160JJ 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive BUT looks like that my SATA works up to 150Mb/sec and a 3Gb/s drive would be a waste........did i get this right? is my mobo, yes, SATA compatible, but, at slow speed only? aka i need a new mobo? :confused:
thank you

[hiredgoonz]

Although the transfer speed will be limited by the mobo, I really don't think it's worth a replacement just for that. I admit I don't have the figures on hand, but I doubt that the sustained read/write speeds for the drive itself are above 150mbps...

The only time it would transfer faster than that would be for small amounts of data that are coming from the cache on the drive...I mean, if money is no object and you want bleeding edge performance, go for it, but I doubt you'll see much of an improvement most of the time...

[andreadebiase]

r u saying that SATA is not that fast regardless of the mobo?
honestly i never had a SATA, is it worth in general?

[saphalline]

SATA is a much better bus protocol than IDE (aka "PATA") and the latest SATA hard drives would blow your old 30GB hard drive out of the water! The upgrade would be worth it since your chipset supports SATA.

However, that doesn't mean that the max transfer rate is ever going to exceed the protocol for the drive. For instance, your 30GB hard drive is connected to your mobo at ATA/133 speeds, aka 133MB/s. Do you honestly think it ever gets that fast? Not even close! The same rules apply to SATA. Just because the hard drive is rated for SATA 300 doesn't mean it can ever go that fast. During bursting, it might get up past the 150MB/s of SATA 150. But most of the time, the sustained performance will be much lower, as hiredgoonz said.

Even so, just because a SATA 300 hard drive won't ever get up to 300MB/s doesn't mean the upgrade isn't worth it. A new SATA hard drive is simply going to bury your current 30GB hard drive. There's no question about that.

[hiredgoonz]

The question he asked though is whether it's worth a mobo upgrade. His current board already supports SATA 150...

Getting a SATA drive would be a nice, worthwhile upgrade, but I just don't think the cost of a new mobo is justifiable for the gain he's going to see between SATA 150 and SATA 300.

Bottom line, a SATA drive added to your current board might be worth doing (if you feel like your system needs a little kick in the data area), but replacing an otherwise good board just to go from SATA 150 to 300? Not worth it IMHO...