SATA has also done away with the master/slave configuration (technically, device 0 and device 1) used in IDE drives. With PATA (IDE), attaching two hard disks to the same channel required one to be set to be the master, the other the slave. For hardware, this usually meant setting the right jumper settings. 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 (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) SATA motherboard: As you know, SATA is the current standard for the connection of hard drive to the motherboard. This is obviously a replacement for the previous IDE connection. It is easily identifiable by the simple plug with only one connection point. SATA motherboards are more likely the present standards and are more efficient, faster, and more stable.

Data transfer speed for IDE ranges from 5MB/s up to 133MB/s (ATA100/133). The parallel wire transfer mode reached its limit with the speed of 133 MB/s. You will feel when you will know about it that connecting the IDE hard drive to the SATA motherboard is a very easy task. It will take at most 10-20 minutes. Remember that the computer must be unplugged from any electrical connection. SATA took off where ATA stopped as far as speed is concerned. The first generation of SATA was 1.2 Gbit/s (150 MB/s; note that MB is mega bytes and Gb is giga bits) similar to PATA/133. Today the third generation of SATA (3.0) (released on May 27, 2009), 6 Gbit/s (600 MB/s) hard drives and motherboards are being used. In a computer system, it's possible to have more than one harddrive. To connect multiple IDE drives, you need to chain the ribbon cables from one to the next. The computer system has no idea which is the main drive, from which to load the OS.There are four to six SATA connections usually in a normal motherboard which allows multiple SATA hard drives to hook up.

As for the TRIM I’m really not sure how it would impact with a SSD Drive it really all depends on the ChipSet of the M’Board.But the SATA bus is a serial point-to-point bus, which means only one device can be connected on each channel. Many SATA drives can connect to the motherboard via multiple ports, and the drive to boot from is specified in the BIOS settings. 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. Moreover, the total switch from IDE to SATA doesn’t happen without issues sometimes. If you have an IDE hard drive but have a SATA motherboard, you can connect the drive to the motherboard still. This may be your reason for the conversion of IDE to SATA. Connecting the IDE Hard Drive to SATA Motherboard 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. Great, Now we have a formatted SATA drive and a partition for OPL ready for games. Game Installation

You have to install the hard drive into an open hard drive area or bay. This depends on the type of computer case. It usually requires just a little sliding into an open bay and normally a very simple procedure.The wide wire in IDE cables caused airflow problems inside the case. The narrower SATA cable allows free airflow inside the case. SATA consists of an 8 mm wide wafer connector on each end and the cable has a 7-pin connector, 3 grounds and 4 active data lines in two pairs. It has the facility to attach only one drive and so Serial ATA does away with Master/Slave configurations. Just my opinion though but look in the BIOS and see if there is an Option to make a SATA Drive the boot drive as that would remove the need for a Driver. 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.