News Chip flaw delays Marvell SATA 6Gb/s launch

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2009/07/17/chip-flaw-delays-marvell-sata-6gbps-launch/1

A flaw in the PATA backwards compatibility of Marvell Semiconductors' first SATA 6Gb/s chip has lead to delays.

 

I thinks it's good that Marvell are taking the time to fix the issue but really PATA shouldn't have been part of the design anyway, it's way too old now and the number of people that would want to buy a bleeding edge motherboard and then use ancient drives with it must be tiny. They should have ditched PATA from the start and saved time and R&D costs. We would have had SATA 6Gb/s by now if it wasn't for this.

 

Two words. Optical drives.

 

3 words:

SATA optical drives.

 

LOL, exactly what I was thinking.

I suppose that there's probably more people using PATA optical drives still than PATA hard disks these days but as suggested previously, who buys a top end mobo with SATA-3 capabilities and then kicks up a stink because they need to shell out £15 for a SATA optical drive?

 

My 2 cents: scre* PATA, who uses that anyway? Go sata go!

 

SATA optical drives are like £15! Come on! We don't need PATA

 

Yeah, but why spend the extra cash when I can keep my perfectly capable drive that I've got right now? Plus, those £15 are usually some loud, low-quality pieces of junk.

 

I've had expensive optical drives, and cheap optical drives. The noise didn't track with cost whatsoever, even the build quality didn't track with cost. I've got a cheap Samsung drive that's been flawless for years while a more expensive NEC drive is no longer able to burn a reliable DVD disc.

It may have been true that an expensive CD-RW or DVD-RW drive was better (due to a larger buffer) but now that under-runs are both less likely to happen and no longer an issue you can get a cheap drive and no longer worry.

Must say though, using SATA drives has improved both the aesthetics and airflow of my case. Must say that ever since SATA optical drives came out I've never wanted a mobo with an IDE or floppy connector - it takes up room and means really rubbish chips end up on the board *cough* jmicron *cough*. Drop PATA/IDE and save a few pennies on the board I say!

 

I honestly didn't know what PATA was until reading this.

 

Yay. I'm all on for dropping PATA completely.
If people need it, then they can get an add-in PCI or PCIe card.....

The floppy and IDE connectors should have gone with the new sockets, AM3 and 1366/1156...

 

All well and good, but I'm assuming this is PATA functionality over the SATA connector and cables. Rather than the old IDE connector I think some people are rallying against here.

 

+1 for dropping PATA

Having both also lengthens boot up times too.

 

Use uses PATA any more? Maybe the odd person with an old ROM drive. Seeing as they can be picked up for less than £20, I'd say ditch PATA all together on new motherboards, that and the floppy connector. That would also help with motherboard layouts.

 

That should have said Who Uses.

 

What people don't realize is that a ton of SATA optical drives still use the PATA legacy interface over SATA cables.
If PATA were dropped from the spec, all of a sudden your SATA optical drives you thought was future-proofed would become defunct.

 

How about just including a PATA -> SATA adaptor in the bundle with the motherboard?

I'm sure they used to around 2002 or so, there's a box full under the spare bed here.


Gooooo on, ditch PATA and use the space for something shiny!

 

Somehow, I don't think they heard you.

It's PATA Compatibility mode people, the Physical PATA is usually handled by a seperate chip anyhow's

 

Doh, I thought the chip controlled the SATA and IDE ports. My mistake.

 

there is no need to support pata just like there is no need to support floppy slot or lpt1 serial ports, ugh come on people get with the times lol.