View Full Version : VeRy n00b question (harddrive buying question)

05-27-2002, 06:29 AM
I waz setting out to buy a new harddrive, and then I see two types (ATA100, and ATA133)..

Are there any difference between them? Are they both compatible with my computer?? If not, how do i find out which one???

I did a little test with a program called belarc even though i think it wont help.. http://santakorea.dyndns.tv/test.htm

can anyone answer this please?

05-27-2002, 07:05 AM
The difference is nothing. ATA133 is the latest and greatest, but sadly will never be put to much use---which is why only one company (Maxtor) is putting out ATA133 capable drives. ATA devices cannot sustain anything faster than 40MB/s. That 133 is just a burst rate, not a sustained one.

The only advantage it supposedly gives you is less CPU utilization--which isn't much to begin with anyway.

The only problem you'll run into is with older motherboards only supporting so large of a capacity. This can be overcome by adding in an ATA controller card from the likes of Promise or HighPoint. Many motherboards have extra ATA controllers from either of these two that can function in RAID. Some companies that use the Promise chips limit them to RAID only, so watch out! HighPoint controllers can do all of this natively without having to be toyed with.

05-27-2002, 07:29 AM
so... it will be compatible??

05-27-2002, 08:26 AM
Yes. Just check your mobo (or get some info on it) to determine if you need to buy a card or not.

Mr. C
05-27-2002, 01:14 PM
I could be mistaken, but I believe that I/O controller is capable of 33/66/100 transfer rates.

If that's the case any extra $'s for ATA 133 would be useless spending.

05-27-2002, 01:21 PM
If your motherboard isn't too old..i'll get a ATA 100 just in case...you aren't gonna miss out on to much with out ATA 133...so get the 100...like that you know you don't have to return any thing. You mobo's manual should have all the specs tho....give that a look see. : peace2:

05-27-2002, 01:25 PM
ATA133 is useless. Anything beyond ATA66 is useless. The reason I threw all that info out was because I didn't know what he had. If he's got something like a Pentium II system, he's probably okay--unless he want's an IDE drive bigger than 137GB's. It's another hardware issue that needs a work around, and would require an external controller to use the whole drive.

However, you're probably right about his needs.

05-27-2002, 01:29 PM
ATA133 is useless. Anything beyond ATA66 is useless.

I wouldn't say that....

Mr. C
05-27-2002, 01:38 PM
Granted, the higher ATA rates don't exactly live up to the promise, but they do have some benefit beyond 66.