Using SATA hard drive on older computer

[tdark]

I have a perfect ASUS socket478 P4 motherboard that I want to fix up for a friend. I have a good 300 gig SATA hard drive that I would like to use. What would be the best option on me using this SATA drive on the older ASUS that does not any SATA connectors ? Would I be able to load XP Pro on the SATA drive if say I got a PCI card that would let me use the drive. Is there any other way like maybe a converter cable or something that is available ? Thanks for any tips on how I can use my SATA drive on a motherboard with only PATA connectors. Tom

[jdc2000]

Adapters:

http://www.cooldrives.com/satoidecofor.html

http://sewelldirect.com/ST-Lab-S-250...572d3231393530


PCI Cards:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16815150095

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16815104219

[Midknyte]

You would require both a data cable and power cable for the SATA drive. You can buy a SATA to Molex power adapter, but you should also get a PCI adapter card. They are much more reliable than the SATA to IDE adapters.

You would probably need to use the F6 option during the XP setup to add the SATA card drivers.

[SuperSparks]

And you will need to add a floppy drive to load the drivers using the F6 option.

[tdark]

Thanks for the reply. You think I would see much difference in using the SATA 300 gig Maxtor or should I just buy the older IDE drive ? I already have the 300 gig and I am not using it is the reason I was thinking about installing it. I am using an older Asus P4PE board and will install 2 gigs of ram in it. I am planning loading XP Pro. The computer does have a floppy drive.
Tom

[SuperSparks]

In terms of performance, you won't see much difference with a single drive. The sustained transfer speed of a drive is primarily governed by its rotational speed, and for a 7200 RPM drive is roughly equivalent to ATA 45. The numbers such as ATA 133 or the 150 or 300 for SATA refer to the burst transfer rate, and only applies to the bit of data that is stored in the drive's cache memory. However, SATA comes into it's own where multiple drives are installed as each drive can read or write at it's maximum sustained rate up to the limit of the controller (300 MB/sec for SATA2), unlike IDE drives, which will get data bottlenecks at the drive controller.