Which one is better? And Can I use it for single speed?

I need to use SATA hard disc on a Motherboard which does not have a sata port. Which one is better, a SATA IDE adapter or PCI based SATA expansion card. Pl explain, which will give me better functionality in terms of speed etc., not withstanding the cost.

• Answer:

  Bridge chips can cause compatability issues in some rare circumstances. Using a PCI based host bus adapter gives your drive more bandwidth, SATA feature support (NCQ, Hotswap, etc), and keeps your PATA slots free for your other drives like CD/DVD. When you use a SATA bridge you will not be able to take advantage of all the SATA features. Keep in mind that not all HBAs are created equal, many HBAs can boost performance while others can bring it down; an exaple of this can be seen in the links below. If you are on a low budgetm then be sure to look for a silicon image chipset. SAS controllers can also serve as a SATA HBA for SATA drives. But SATA controllers will not operate SAS drives. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/adaptec-serial-controllers,1806.html http://www.tomshardware.com/s/controllers