NationStates Jolt Archive

Debian won't work with it! Ubuntu won't work with it! Windows won't work with it, or, if it does, it's erratic at best! It has a tendency to fail in various ways. Tonight, I've watched the same SATA drive disappear from my system a dozen times. Whoever thinks SATA is the way to go is an idiot!

This is not the first SATA computer I've owned. We had a SATA computer in Florida. It had two drives. Neither of them worked more than five minutes at a time. We now have two more computers with SATA controllers, and neither of their drives work.

Oh, I've managed to install Windows on one. But it would only run for short periods of time before crashing. And the other, well, we gave up and put in EIDE drives for it.

For the one that had Windows, we've tried both Ubuntu and Debian. Guess what? The drive seems to have a habit of disappearing!

Oh, wait! It gets better! We actually have tried two drives in the second machine, both having the same grand results!

So much for the so-called "superior benefits" of SATA! If SATA's so great, how come I can't even get it to work?

SATA's bull manore garbage!

*giggles and plays with the switches some more* :D

One question:
SATA?

SATA - Serial ATA controller. It is a hard drive that uses a little red cable that flops all around on it's connector to talk to your computer. I've never had one actually work. So what good is it?

SATA - Serial ATA controller. It is a hard drive that uses a little red cable that flops all around on it's connector to talk to your computer. I've never had one actually work. So what good is it?
Get a decent one and you have the opportunity to have MASSES of space.

Does that mean that Western Digital is known to produce garbage then?

Ya' know, SATA's not the first example of bad ideas proliferating and becoming "the best way." When is the last time you saw a large hybrid vehicle that can pull a lot of weight? I mean, it's been known that "hybrid" technology can improve fuel economy while reducing maintenance costs now for over eighty years! So why is it we're not all using that?

"Get a decent SATA drive." Sheesh! You're like that guy that said "Second Life is less demanding on a network connection than Eve Online!"

Get real! Western Digital Caviar Drives are not garbage!

Does that mean that Western Digital is known to produce garbage then?
Dunno, don't really use them.
You're like that guy that said "Second Life is less demanding on a network connection than Eve Online!"
Completely different. For starters, that guy is ridiculous.
Get real! Western Digital Caviar Drives are not garbage!
Be less clumsy, then. Or other such excuses. Mine works totally fine, I'm on XP at the moment.

Are you using those SATA drives? And if yours are working, how in the hell is that even possible? I've never seen them work consistently for any length of time on any machine I've ever owned.

Are you using those SATA drives? And if yours are working, how in the hell is that even possible?
European air or something.

I have two SATA drives, both of which have yet to fail on me. I run Vista 64-bit on one and I've heavily loaded the other with media and games. One of mine is Western Digital, a company I found produces a good sturdy hard drive. The other is a Seagate. Another hard drive I'm pleased with. These two drives placed the drive I had before, which ran on IDE. The first drive is three years old, the second is two.

If you're having trouble with your disk, try contacting the manufacturer if it's still under warranty. Do research about other companies that produce SATA drives; IDE is on the way out, so you will have to use SATA eventually whether you like it or not.

Also, I heavily advise against calling people who find SATA technology to be halfways decent... 'idiots'. It could be taken the wrong way.

Whoever thinks SATA is the way to go is an idiot!

So, you're warned for trolling.

Debian won't work with it! Ubuntu won't work with it! Windows won't work with it, or, if it does, it's erratic at best! It has a tendency to fail in various ways. Tonight, I've watched the same SATA drive disappear from my system a dozen times. Whoever thinks SATA is the way to go is an idiot!

This is not the first SATA computer I've owned. We had a SATA computer in Florida. It had two drives. Neither of them worked more than five minutes at a time. We now have two more computers with SATA controllers, and neither of their drives work.

Oh, I've managed to install Windows on one. But it would only run for short periods of time before crashing. And the other, well, we gave up and put in EIDE drives for it.

For the one that had Windows, we've tried both Ubuntu and Debian. Guess what? The drive seems to have a habit of disappearing!

Oh, wait! It gets better! We actually have tried two drives in the second machine, both having the same grand results!

So much for the so-called "superior benefits" of SATA! If SATA's so great, how come I can't even get it to work?

SATA's bull manore garbage!

The only time I have a problem with SATA drives is on the rare occasion when I'm poking around inside the case, and accidentally bump one of the data cables loose. Check your cables, maybe they're not fully seated.

This is not the first SATA computer I've owned. We had a SATA computer in Florida. It had two drives. Neither of them worked more than five minutes at a time. We now have two more computers with SATA controllers, and neither of their drives work.
Your luck sucks.

SATA doesn't.

Not only is it more convenient, but it supports hot-swap, so is safe to disconnect and reconnect hot.

Of course, most mobo internal controllers do suck.

I have a SATA drive installed on my XP Pro homebrew. Perhaps you should find a new motherboard manufacturer? It's a little bit faster than Ultra133. The only real complaint I have against SATA is, it's not as fast as it should be.
I kind of figured by this point in the game we would have hard drives made of RAM chips that would simply retain their data when they lose power.

Maybe the next generation of Solid State Drives (combined with the potentially-faster USB 3.0 specifications?) will bring that closer to reality.

I recently built a computer with three SATA drives (2 RAID 1 HDs and a DVD drive). I've had zero problems in the months since I put it together. My experience with SATA on other computers has been satisfactory as well; I don't think I've ever had any trouble with it. My problems have been limited to a dead motherboard, a 12v rail on my PSU failing and several crashed HDs. Most likely your problems are with your motherboard, or perhaps PSU.

Debian won't work with it! Ubuntu won't work with it! Windows won't work with it, or, if it does, it's erratic at best! It has a tendency to fail in various ways. Tonight, I've watched the same SATA drive disappear from my system a dozen times. Whoever thinks SATA is the way to go is an idiot!

This is not the first SATA computer I've owned. We had a SATA computer in Florida. It had two drives. Neither of them worked more than five minutes at a time. We now have two more computers with SATA controllers, and neither of their drives work.

Oh, I've managed to install Windows on one. But it would only run for short periods of time before crashing. And the other, well, we gave up and put in EIDE drives for it.

For the one that had Windows, we've tried both Ubuntu and Debian. Guess what? The drive seems to have a habit of disappearing!

Oh, wait! It gets better! We actually have tried two drives in the second machine, both having the same grand results!

So much for the so-called "superior benefits" of SATA! If SATA's so great, how come I can't even get it to work?

SATA's bull manore garbage!
calm down.

What version of Windows are you running?

The only time I have a problem with SATA drives is on the rare occasion when I'm poking around inside the case, and accidentally bump one of the data cables loose. Check your cables, maybe they're not fully seated.

^ this ^

What's this troll FUD, SATA drives have been around for years, they work fine.

I just built a new computer with a pair of SATA HDs after having my craptastic IDE drives fail on me for the third or fourth time. So, we can reasonably extrapolate, based on the standards of the OP, that IDE is shit technology for losers and SATA is the best thing ever and makes your dick bigger. Right?

I bought a RamSan-440, but it's not a SATA drive, lol. Fibre Channel rules.

I kind of figured by this point in the game we would have hard drives made of RAM chips that would simply retain their data when they lose power.

We do, they are called solid-state drives. I do not recommend them, they are very expensive and do not retain data very long when taken out and stored on a shelf. They run off a battery when not physically connected to a computer.

There are benefits to SATA and PATA. Most computer drives are PATA and have been for quite a while. In fact, if you are buying a new computer any time soon, I recommend making sure it has at least 1 or 2 PATA connectors on the motherboard so you can connect older parts. SATA is faster and has better security features, though if you are truly worried about data security you should consider SCSI RAID.

Um... are you sure you're doing it right?

I mean, I've had the hard drive in my laptop fail (I know it's a SATA, it failed for mechanical reasons) but it's always talked to whatever operating system I've needed it to talk to. I've run osx on it, gentoo and I plugged it into an ubuntu system.

Of course if you're installing ubuntu... how the fuck do you botch that job?

Oh, also my external hard drive is SATA, I've used it to connect to win xp, fedora, osx, gentoo, ubuntu... the only times I've had problems are when I fucked with the formatting and even then it still worked in linux.

We do, they are called solid-state drives. I do not recommend them, they are very expensive and do not retain data very long when taken out and stored on a shelf. They run off a battery when not physically connected to a computer.

That, sir, is misleading. Solid-state drives today generally refer to flash-based drives, as in the same type of flash thats in your USB memory stick. You probably know this, and I'm probably being condescending as hell, but c'mon.

An issue with them though is limited read/write compared to common magnetic-based HDDs. And that of cost. Insane, insane costs, though they're common with new technology, but generally speaking they do cost more than some platters of metal to make.

However, they lack moving parts, and are therefore more robust, and consume far less power than moving HDDs, and therefore are good for laptops etc for increasing battery life, and not destroying everything you have when you drop it accidentally.

Works for me.

How ancient is your motherboard & BIOS? Are all cables properly connected? Do you have a cheap/old/underpowered power supply?

What's all this? SATA is fast, reliable and compact. Kicks the crap out of PATA.

That, sir, is misleading. Solid-state drives today generally refer to flash-based drives, as in the same type of flash thats in your USB memory stick. You probably know this, and I'm probably being condescending as hell, but c'mon.

An issue with them though is limited read/write compared to common magnetic-based HDDs. And that of cost. Insane, insane costs, though they're common with new technology, but generally speaking they do cost more than some platters of metal to make.

However, they lack moving parts, and are therefore more robust, and consume far less power than moving HDDs, and therefore are good for laptops etc for increasing battery life, and not destroying everything you have when you drop it accidentally.

My laptop has a SSD. The limited read write thing is no longer a concern, because of wear levelling, etc. If this drive was written to at it's maximum speed 24/7, it would take three years to fail from wearing out, by which point the laptop is hopelessly outdated and needs replacing anyway.

However, because I just have a little netbook, I do only have 4gig to keep the costs down.

Debian won't work with it! Ubuntu won't work with it! Windows won't work with it, or, if it does, it's erratic at best! It has a tendency to fail in various ways.


Which version of Debian or Ubuntu? I know that some earlier versions had problems... Do you happen to know what chip-set or controller you have?


Tonight, I've watched the same SATA drive disappear from my system a dozen times.


Now that really sounds like hardware. Are you sure it's not just a loose connection? Have you tired connecting that drive to another computer? Try both before replacing any major components.

I have SATA on my computer at work, but then it's a mac. But really no issues with it what so ever. It *seems* faster but then that computer is just so much better than the one I have at home (and am using right now) - i don't really have anything to objectively compare it to.

We do, they are called solid-state drives. I do not recommend them, they are very expensive and do not retain data very long when taken out and stored on a shelf. They run off a battery when not physically connected to a computer.

The RamSan I have uses RAIDed DDR RAM for storage, has an integral backup power system to keep the chips powered if the power fails, and is constantly writing data back to an actual hard drive.

So during operation, I get storage at the speed of DDR RAM, do not suffer the problems with flash memory, and I am safe in the event of a power failure.

The memory is also using ChipKill technology, so if any of the RAM starts going bad, it's not going to affect me.

ChipKill is flawed, so are most made up spec buzzwords, made up to sound cool and sell. It's not proven useful in the real world.

Like ReadyBoost. Grab your flash drives and fire up Vista, it's READYBOOST.
ha-ha-ha @ ReadyBoost

Like ReadyBoost. Grab your flash drives and fire up Vista, it's READYBOOST.
ha-ha-ha @ ReadyBoost

What's wrong with ReadyBoost? It's perfectly reasonable.

Debian won't work with it! Ubuntu won't work with it! Windows won't work with it, or, if it does, it's erratic at best!

Windows too? strange, I have 2 'puters on SATA with WinXP and they work abolutely fine.
Review your mommaboard settings, maybe that's the problem.

Anyway, SCSI rules (Ultra160, Ultra320 aaaand... SAS!)