I've searched the web and this forum for information regarding using a SATA drive in an old box. Unfortunately almost all of the hits are for RAID, which is not what I'm trying to do.

I have an old Dell machine that I use as a home server. I would like to add more hard disk space and would like to put in a SATA drive. I've installed IDE drives in my Linux boxes before, but I believe the SATA drive have different connectors. What do I need to get a SATA drive up and running as extra HD space (RAID not needed, secondary drive - not boot drive)?

Do I need to buy a SATA PCI card or can the SATA drive connect up and run by itself? (I'm running a box with Ubuntu Heron and another box with Centos 5.1.)

Thanks.

Im not a hardware expert but guess sata has greater throughoput performance and IDE. So and Sata controller would be the best option. If performance not a big deal they make sata to ide adapters like this.
http://www.cooldrives.com/satoidecofor.html
Never used one so no idea what happens.

Brian

Hi,
You will need a SATA PCI card if you want a SATA drive. What about a external usb drive? Does your BIOS support external boot?

If you just want storage then the external may be the cheapest.

Post the hardware specs for the equipment you wish to install the SATA controller in.

There are SATA controllers for both PCI and PCI-E:

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductList3.jsp

I've never had problems with Promise products---can't say about the others

If you get a sata controller under centos you will need to compile a newer kernel for sata support.

Brian

Brian

That will depend on which version of Centos he is running, won't it? I am running Centos 5 on several machines with sata drives.

Havent used Centos for about a half year but built my own kernels when using based on hardware i had. Did not know what stock precompiled rpm kernels Centos was at and support for sata. Was thinking the 2.6.16 sata was just in its beginning. Thanks for the info.

Brian

Thanks for the reply.

I was opting for a SATA drive because I want to play video files from the hard disk. I thought the performance would be much better and the install would be cleaner if I put everything in the box. I would also have to buy a USB 2.0 card for the machine as well. I don't need to boot from the USB drive, however, so that may be an easier option to get running.

The server is an old Gateway Essentials Mini-tower. Shipped in July 2000. It's a hand me down, but serves up the video just great.
750Mhz cpu, 256MB of RAM here's the output of lspci -v:
http://www.shortText.com/bli8gx