ATA or SATA hard drive?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Terry Pinnell
  • Start date Start date
T

Terry Pinnell

I have two identical HDs at present on my AMD Athlon XP1800, 512MB.
Both are '60GB 7200rpm MAXTOR 6L060J3 UDMA-133 EIDE with 2MB buffer'.
I'm looking for a new 200 GB HD, but there appear to be two types: ATA
and SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment). How can I establish
beyond any doubt which I need please?
 
Terry,

SATA is faster than ATA, at present SATA can transfer 150MB /s, while ATA
can transfer 133MB /s.
 
Terry,

SATA is faster than ATA, at present SATA can transfer 150MB /s, while ATA
can transfer 133MB /s.
Click to expand...

Irrelevant. Neither type of drive can sustain that transfer rate. Terry
needs to find out if his motherboard supports SATA. If it does he can get
a PATA (or ATA as he calls it) drive or a SATA drive, otherwise just a
PATA drive. Also, remember to enable 48bit support if you want to use the
new drive as just one big partition. http://www.48bitlba.com/
 
Michael Cecil said:
Irrelevant. Neither type of drive can sustain that transfer rate. Terry
needs to find out if his motherboard supports SATA. If it does he can get
a PATA (or ATA as he calls it) drive or a SATA drive, otherwise just a
PATA drive. Also, remember to enable 48bit support if you want to use the
new drive as just one big partition. http://www.48bitlba.com/
Click to expand...

Thanks. I'll have to check to be 100% sure, but I reckon this PC
doesn't support SATA. FWIW, my m/b = ASUS A7A266-E, BIOS = Award
Software with ASUS A7A266-E ACPI BIOS v 1009, System Chipset = M1647
ALiMAGiK 1 AGP System Controller.

Unless I'm going to actually see any of that extra potential speed of
an SATA type, I reckon I'll probably go for a 'MAXTOR 200GB HARD DRIVE
7200RPM DiamondMax Plus 10 ATA-133 Average Seek Time 9.4 ms'. Does
that sound OK to you?
 
Terry,

SATA is faster than ATA, at present SATA can transfer 150MB /s, while ATA
can transfer 133MB /s.
Click to expand...
Not relevant. SATA has the capability to grow in the future, that's
true. Currently, though, it is limited at 150, while older ATA runs
at 133. The difference is so minimal that you won't really notice the
difference in throughput.
 
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