In response to the Serial ATA question I'll refer to an article in the April
2003 issue of PCWorld, but as I have no real world experience, this is only to
pass on what I've read about it.
"Serial ATA offers several advantages over parallel ATA because its seven
wire cable attaches more easily, allows longer runs (up to 1 Meter) and
interferes less with airflow.
They also permit faster data transfer. Parallel ATA's top rate of 133Mbps is
about the maximum the technology allows. At higher frequencies, the signals
carried can interfere (crosstalk) with other wires in the cable. Serial ATA does
not have such restrictions. It supports transfers of 150Mbps already and the
rate will jump first to 300 then 600 MBps over the next decade.
Aside from raw throughput, Serial ATA has the ability to que and then execute
commands while the CPU performs other tasks."
However, for the biggest speed boost, link two drives using a RAID card,
unless it's supported on the motherboard directly. And depending on the
arrangement of the drives (RAID,0 or RAID,1) the drives can be 'striped' meaning the
card or board will treat the two drives as one increasing throughput.

Chris Ryan
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