A few weeks ago I decided to step into the world of a SATA only system.  I was running a 12 IDE+ 4 SATA (On a SATA I controller) system running the original hardware.

 

Why?  For speed and new hardware not to mention I was at max drive capacity and all the smaller ones were full.

 

After doing some research I found out the going rate for IDE HD's are pretty high.  On ebay you can get an average of $35 for a 300GB and $49 for a 500GB priror to what you charge for shipping.  I used a fixed format auction with a buy it now price and a make an offer price.  Ebay and paypal total fees ran between $4 and $5 a drive.

 

 

Doing the math if you have 3 -300 GB drives that will net you about $100 after fees.  If you can find a sale you can get a 1TB SATA drive for 99.99 most likely with free shipping.  Netting you a 100GB extra for free.

 

If you have 2 - 500 GB drives that's $93 after rebate so for $6 more dollars you again can have that 1TB drive.

 

Also depending on when you purchased your drives they could still have a warranty on them.  All of my Seagate and Maxtor drives had at least a year left on them (a great selling feature).  The only drive out of warranty was a 400GB Hitachi that I had picked up 3 years ago and it was the second drive to sell.

 

Essentially swapping out hard drives now is cost effective.  I sold the rest of my hardware and made about 75% of what I paid for the new mobo/cpu/memory and drive bays.  But again I now have a full SATA system with only 6 disks that can be once again slowly expanded to 16 drives when needed.

 

Just some things to consider if you are in a similar situation. 

 

Erik

 

 

Thanks for this helpful post, was just thinking of this!

750G drives were once available as IDE and now not.  Newer / higher capacity drives are coming out only for SATA.  I think that we'll continue to see IDE drive availabilty decrease and prices stay above SATA drive prices.  SATA drives have become the mainstream.  At the very least, if you need to replace a drive, be prepared with some SATA ports!

750G drives were once available as IDE and now not.  Newer / higher capacity drives are coming out only for SATA.  I think that we'll continue to see IDE drive availabilty decrease and prices stay above SATA drive prices.  SATA drives have become the mainstream.  At the very least, if you need to replace a drive, be prepared with some SATA ports!

If you do not have SATA ports, there are many inexpensive SATA controllers for the PCI bus. 

 

You can also potentially use an inline SATA to IDE converter, but those might be very difficult to fit into an existing drive tray.  You might have to get rid of the tray or modify it to make things fit. (I had done this on one of my icy-dock trays at one point to use a 750Gig SATA drive in my array)

 

Joe L.