Serial ATA Motherboards are out!

[Ioman]

Both Asus and Aopen both have announced new Serial ATA motherboards. The Asus is based on a VIA VIA KT400/8235 chipset and the Aopen is based on the Intek 845G chipset.

http://www.designtechnica.com/article.php?sid=2030&mode=thread&order=1&thold=0

http://www.designtechnica.com/article.php?sid=2033


This is awsome news and I am glad to see technology moving forward once again. AGP 8X and Serial ATA will truly help speed things up. Also means I need to get a new system :(

[ECA]

I really have a problem with what the Mobo makers want to call CURRENT tech.
There are standards out there that Should of been used 10 years ago, that have never seen the light of day.
I'd love to see a parallel archictecture in a Win/tell board.
The band pass is great, the IRQ's are gone, and its CHEAP.

[Entropy]

I've actually heard of a new Asynchronous architecture thats being developed.

Their will be no clock control w/ this architecture and every piece of hardware will run at its optimum speed. Everything will run indepedant of everything else, and so there will therefore be no need for a synchronizning control unit like a chipset.

The trick to this architecture thats currently in development is data integrity, which their perfecting now.

I got this nfo from a very credible source, however, I've personally forgotten its name and over 1/2 of the details.


Has anyone else heard of something like this? I'd like to learn more about it, but dont know where to start looking. :confused:

[ECA]

I read an article about it.
But think about it. The AMIGA and a few older machines ALREADY had it.
Windows dont really need it, and the cards dont care either.
Drop the IRQ's, and set up a memory location for each card. Anything that goes into that location is USEd by that card.
IRQ's are a throw back to the OLD days, thay are used to tell the card there is DATA. With all the RAM we have we dont need it any more. I would love to see a Video board that controlled itself. Have its OWN processor on it and controlled the data displayed. Syncing Audio and video is easy, the amiga did it with Time Code. The same thing as in TV time code. SMPTE.. The best part is when a Card FREEZES it wont screw the system.

[Ioman]

Originally posted by ECA
I read an article about it.
But think about it. The AMIGA and a few older machines ALREADY had it.
Windows dont really need it, and the cards dont care either.
Drop the IRQ's, and set up a memory location for each card. Anything that goes into that location is USEd by that card.
IRQ's are a throw back to the OLD days, thay are used to tell the card there is DATA. With all the RAM we have we dont need it any more. I would love to see a Video board that controlled itself. Have its OWN processor on it and controlled the data displayed. Syncing Audio and video is easy, the amiga did it with Time Code. The same thing as in TV time code. SMPTE.. The best part is when a Card FREEZES it wont screw the system.

But does Windows 2000/XP alrady do this with the Hardware Abstraction Layer HAL thus eliminating the need for IRQ's? When a crash occurs, you get a message and the option to close the application versus a hard freez like Windows 98 used to have.

[Cloud]

I for one am real excited about the serial ATA and the 8X AGP. I am wondering what the product lifeline looks like. If I buy a serial ATA mobo, will there be a faster version out next month?

Also, how many serial ATA drives are on the market?

[ECA]

Not sure IOMAN
As I dont WANT XP..
Im waiting for the mobo's to catch up NOW.
Why dont they go to Straight Firewire for HD.
I know Windows bypasses the IRQ's anyway. And its a PAIN when there is an HARDWARE IRQ conflict.

I got tired of trying to keep up with windows.. They do everything the hard way, the MOST complicated way, the best way to copyprotect it way. Its no longer modular, add what you want or need, and leave it at that.

[dang]

Yum...serial ATA. I can't wait till more of em hit the market. I hope the drives are much cheaper then SCSI.

Finally some serious competition for SCSI. Hopefully this will drive SCSI prices down.

I'd by serial ATA just for the cables. Being able to plug it in easily, like USB or Firewire.

[Ioman]

Originally posted by dang
Finally some serious competition for SCSI. Hopefully this will drive SCSI prices down.



I think that IDE was some serious compeition for SCSI, whether they were faster or not, you could do the same applications (hardware wise) as SCSI at a quarter of the cost. IDE RAID is extremely cheap and effecient.

Think of how much cooler your case and airflow will be without the thick IDE cables there....OOPS almost forgot, your CD drives will still run on IDE cables for a while
:(

[ECA]

I would love to put my HD's in a external raid case... That would be great and Cool the system at the same time.
So what your CPU puts off heat, consider the HD's. Those things TOAST, and the more you got the MORE they can toast.
Lets see, I think I can pick up HD 20gigs for less then $50. 8x20=160gigs.. NICE.. And look at the security, and back-up ability..

[ruri]

Personally, I would wait about a year until the serial ATA becomes more mainstream. You could accomplish most of the same capability as serial ATA by using rounded IDE cable.

As for external RAID setup with IDE, I looked into that but decided the problems & cost exceeded the payoff.

First off, to do an external RAID setup, you need to convert IDE -> SCSI because IDE limits you to about 30" cable and 2 device/channel. Then you need the SCSI card. And then you need the enclosure. Could be done, but $$$.

I decided to buy 9-5 1/4" + 3-3 1/2" server case, 1 cheap ATA100 controller and a bunch of Fry's 120GB specials (WD really). All told, the final storage cost is about $1.25/GB, including active cooling.

[ECA]

The enclosures are REALLY stupid price wise..
Love to find companies going under(broke) and buy there stuff.

[dang]

IDE is not serious competition to SCSI. IDE has always owned the home market because its cheap and most people dont need many drives or swap drives out...

However in the server market, SCSI rules and will continue to rule. Several reasons:
- More then 4 devices.
- Large amounts of storage (terabytes)
- Much faster then IDE drive out
- Hot Swappable
- Real raid arrays

[Entropy]

Originally posted by dang
IDE is not serious competition to SCSI. IDE has always owned the home market because its cheap and most people dont need many drives or swap drives out...

However in the server market, SCSI rules and will continue to rule. Several reasons:
- More then 4 devices.
- Large amounts of storage (terabytes)
- Much faster then IDE drive out
- Hot Swappable
- Real raid arrays

I have to go w/ Dang on this one. SCSI will continue to offer alot more to the server community than IDE for a long time, for the exact reasons he stated above.

Just in terms of speed...

-I'm running 2 ATA100 Seagate Barracuda IV 7.2k rpm 40gb drives in a RAID-0 striping array, and I only beat out a SINGLE U160 15k rpm SCSI drive by a mere 4mb/s (SCSI pumps about 38 megs/sec, and my IDE RAID-0 array pumps 42megs/sec). Thats pathetic.

Dont get me wrong, I'm hella happy w/ my 42megs a sec :D, but the fact that a stand-alone drive can even compare w/ a RAIDed pair of drives... yeah...

[ECA]

But is that a scsi 1, 2, extra, extra wide, wide, or the Other scsi, that REALLY costs alot.

If thats a current SCSI drive its probably Scsi 2.. TRY FAST WIDE scsi 2...
Or think about a RAID of SCSI 2...

[Ioman]

Originally posted by dang
IDE is not serious competition to SCSI. IDE has always owned the home market because its cheap and most people dont need many drives or swap drives out...

However in the server market, SCSI rules and will continue to rule. Several reasons:
- More then 4 devices.
- Large amounts of storage (terabytes)
- Much faster then IDE drive out
- Hot Swappable
- Real raid arrays

You are correct. I should have stated where and what applications IDE RAID would be good competition. For small businesses and home use, IDE would be the wise choice.

[Entropy]

;)