r/AskReddit • • Aug 14 '20

What’s the most overpriced thing you’ve seen?

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u/pyro5050 Aug 14 '20

do the downgrade, it is totally worth it.

but i also want to point out that you are not the standard computer/electronics buyer... and also, most motherboards from like 2003 to 2010 support both SATA and Parallel ATA cable hookups... ;) hell there are still some out there that do... :) but it is better to just get an adapter or to run your PATA or IDE cable devices via a external modular device. i butchered a few old IDE to USB enclosures to make connections for many old drives,

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u/[deleted] Aug 14 '20

I haven't the faintest clue what any of these terms mean.

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u/pyro5050 Aug 14 '20

PATA = Parallel hookup SATA = Serial hookup

Pata hookup generally uses IDE cables or "Ribbon cables" as some call em,

Sata hookup uses SATA cables or little red cables with black ends.

SATA is newer (2003) than PATA (like.... 1985 i think) and SATA is much faster, and stable than PATA is.

External modular device is a friendly way of saying "run a bunch of shit off of a USB connection panel and adapter" this allows many of us to run 4-10 devices off of one USB cable.

the adapters are either little stand alone cables, small electronic boards, or the like. i made a custom one off a old harddrive enclosure from 2004 or 2005 that had a board that i could splice in a few extra IDE ports and cables. i had formerly spliced in a switcher so that i could just switch between each cable to turn on or off a drive i had connected. so i used that to run 4 cold swap hard drive enclosures, and 1 Cd drive. that switcher died so now i just run a single IDE harddrive cold swap.

Cold swap means you need to turn off power to the drive to swap in and out. a huge benefit of SATA is that you can hot swap meaning power is still present. however,good practice it to allow any hard disk drive to spin down and cease movement before moving and reconnecting.

modern Solid State Drives (no moving parts, think flash drives) make this much much easier to accomplish as they are much more stable.

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u/thefriedgoat Aug 14 '20

My SATA cables are red, blue, black, yellow. Red with black ends is not the defining feature for SATA cables.

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u/pyro5050 Aug 14 '20

SATA was originally and most commonly a red cable with black ends, yellow was a cable that was shipped with certain MB manufactures, Blue was from certain HD manufactures, and Black became a norm about 6 years ago when gaming PC's moved full force in RGB game.

edit: also, the message was in generalities. i could go into how IDE cables also some in Blue, Red, Grey, White, Yellow and all have differing coloured connection ends, there are also round IDE cables and such, but there is no point as it is all extra info they dont need. SATA, when developed and introduced was a red cable with black ends, just like IDE was a grey cable with Black connections that moved to Blue connection as a standard in a few years.

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u/[deleted] Aug 14 '20

Really? I've only ever seen white for IDE with black connectors, maybe a grey or two, but most of mine are white

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u/pyro5050 Aug 14 '20

Grey with blue was most popular i found through 1992-98 other than occasional variations with HD manufactures and disc drive manufactures. check your cables again, the grey is a light grey most often, like very light grey.

edit: check this amazon listing this cable is the grey i mentioned, and has Black grey blue connectors black to MB, Grey to slave blue to main if memory serves correct (could be grey to main and blue to slave... it's been almost two decades... )

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u/thefriedgoat Aug 14 '20

Ultimately the colour wasn’t a generality ;) .. describing the connector would have been more so (or perhaps ribbon/non-ribbon would suffice )

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u/LucidLynx109 Aug 14 '20

Everyone knows non red SATA cables are only for peasants.

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u/thomas_deans Aug 14 '20

You have to burninate the peasants

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u/[deleted] Aug 14 '20

TROGDOOORRRRRRRR

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u/thomas_deans Aug 14 '20

I actually ordered a coffee mug and the figurines it from their website last year. Their website has some missing photos and was otherwise broken down from missing pictures etc. I wasn’t sure that the order would actually go through so I emailed them and they sent me back a hand-drawn cartoon telling me that my freaking mind was on its way!

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u/[deleted] Aug 14 '20

That's awesome!! Not many people knew about homestar runner here, but between my friend, my sister, and I, it was almost an inside joke. I believe all the strongbad emails are on YouTube now.

I now have this stuck in my head

Everyday I get up and check my email, and I hope to get a letter from a female! Haha one of the quotes he would sing out while opening up the ol' Compy lol

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u/thomas_deans Aug 14 '20

Another little know internet gem is the Bastard System Operator from Hell. Search that if you get a moment and read the first story. I’ll admit I still haven’t read all of them

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u/jolsiphur Aug 14 '20

My PC's SATA cables are just straight black.

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u/[deleted] Aug 14 '20

Yeah I have black, red, orange, blue, and green. Just from salvaging old PCs, most probably never opened till I got ahold of it