The wide wire in IDE cables caused airflow problems inside the case. The narrower SATA cable allows free airflow inside the case.

SATA (right) and IDE (left) hard drives. The SATA hard drive has the data cable on the right and power cable on the left. The IDE data cable is ribbon-like (on the left) Yes, SATA is faster than IDE. It is the newer standard and should always be chosen over the older IDE connectors. While IDE offers data speed of up to 133 MB/s, SATA can transfer data at 6 Gb/s. Can a USB to SATA power a HDD? I personally feel that you should not ask this question at this moment of reading. After reading the advantages of SATA, you should know it by now why you need to connect to SATA. In modern times, there is no competition of SATA with IDE; SATA is always ahead of IDE. If you closely examine all of the factors described above, you will see that the SATA drivers are better than PATA drivers in almost all aspects. Why Do You Need to Connect to SATA?The SATA drives usually need very little power than PATA drives. The SATA drive usually uses only 250 mV of power, which is even 25 percent of one volt. SATA drives have an additional feature of Hot plugging which mean that even as the computer is running drives can be removed or added. The data transfer rate of SATA connections is very fast compared to that of IDE connections. In fact, the main reason for SATA being used over IDE is because of the increased data transfer speeds of SATA connection hard drives. IDE has the capacity of data transfer speeds of 33/66/100/133 MB/second, whereas SATA is capable of 150/300/600 MBs/second. The differences in speed are due to the various versions and flavors of IDE and SATA. IDE is the short form of ‘Integrated Drive Electronics’ which is actually an interface for connecting the processor and the drives. It should be clear, by interface I mean the way in which your computer and the hard drive is connected. This is also known as ATA or Parallel ATA. On each drive, IDE has its own controllers. So the drive can connect directly to the motherboard. The hard drives which have IDE connection have 8-pin or 24-pin connection usually that plugs into a slot on the motherboard directly. What is SATA?

The SATA cables are up to 40 inches. So it is an advantage of SATA over IDE which is the management of cables and length of the cables connecting the hard drives and motherboard. When you have extra length in cables, more flexibility of the positions of the drive can be attained. USB ports can only deliver so much electricity to power portable HDDs, not regular HDDs. So, you will need to use a separate power adapter. How do I know if my HDD is SATA or IDE? Hard drives need a cable/connection for data and one for power. Parallel ATA only allows data cable lengths up to 18 in (457 mm) while SATA allows cable lengths up to 1 m (3.28 ft). eSATA cables can be 2 m in length. Great, Now we have a formatted SATA drive and a partition for OPL ready for games. Game Installation

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It may even work with a SATA Drive but not a SSD Drive as while these days they are interchangeable in the past they where not always so. Also the hardware always treats IDE Drives as the Default Master Drive and writes the Boot Loaded to that Drive so it’s important after the Clone to remove the IDE Drive before starting the system on the SSD Drive. Firstly, open the external part of your computer or your computer case to get access to the motherboard and the hard drive connections. You may need a screwdriver or may not need Lastly, close your computer case. After plugging in power supply, boot your computer. There might be some last setup procedures that’ll take place at the time of the boot process, if either your IDE drive is somehow new or has no data stored on it. You should always follow any on-screen In most cases, no additional set up is usually necessary and you will find the drive simply available for storage use. It may require a SATA or SSD driver so a straight “Clone” may not provide you with a bootable drive when you have finished the clone process removed the IDE drive and are trying to boot off the SSD. IDE Hard Drive: It is one of the most elements that’s needed. You know by now what IDE is. IDE hard drives are easily identifiable through their pin connection points usually. In most of the cases, the installation is by plugging it into the required component. It is needed to ensure a tight connection.