SATA drives are supposed to have a quicker transfer rate then IDE, and using a sata drive free's up your IDE channels on your board, as standard, your limited to 4 ide devices, my work one for instance has 2 hard drives, and 2 cd drives, my home system has 5 hard drives and 2 cd drives as I have a maxtor PCI IDE controller, which has 2 channels on it, allowing another 4 drives if need be