ATA66 and now ATA100- WHAT TO BUY OR TO UPGRADE

[tillo]

I bought AMD with mother board of KT-133 which has ATA-66 for hard drive. i installed 7200 rpm quantum. now in news is ATA-100. what is this . Does it work for 7200 rpm or for some other kind of hard drive. can my motherboard upgraded or i have to change it. What is the performance diff overall.

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Best wishes
Akhtar

[Reid]

A controller card is made by Promise that supports ATA100, so you can keep your existing motherboard. The link to the whitepaper describes ATA100 and expected performance gains. Reviews I have read indicate that the performance gain is not very significant now. The deciding factor may be whether you have, or will buy, hardware and applications that need the increased transfer rates.
http://www.quantum.com/src/whitepapers/wp_ultraata100.htm
http://www.systemlogic.net/reviews/hardware/controllers/promise/ultra100/print.php3

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rdrummond@thesimpsons.com

[Son of Zeus]

tillo,

just a short note to confirm Reid's posting. Current quality 7200RPM HDs have very high platter-to-buffer transfer rates. They can now provide sustained data transfer reads of over 40MB/Sec. The DiamondMax Plus 40 HD, for instance, comes in at 43MB/Sec. So it would seem that the ATA/66 interface should be more than adequate for their needs. However there is another factor to take into account in all this. This factor is their burst read data transfer rate. Under ideal conditions HD burst read data transfer rates may now actually exceed the ATA/66 spec. (although only just).

Such theoretical ideal conditions rarely occur in real life though, & even when they do, they only allow for extremely short bursts of data reads, not data writes. Therefore it is highly unlikely that u would even know if your HD was using ATA/66 or ATA/100 even if the HD, very occasionally, does pump data out at over 66MB/Sec.

The ATA/100 specification was agreed upon & implemented by HD manufacturers in order to ensure that current generation of HDs have scope to improve & increase their performance without the interface itself ever becoming the bottleneck. The group that made the spec indicated that expected it would take at least two (2) years before HD sustained data transfer reads exceed 100MB/Sec.

Well that’s their story & they’re sticking to it. The more cynical amongst us might suggest that it more about marketing & sales, than technology, but I won’t go there.

Cheers.......Son of Zeus.

[zomster]

I bought a 3rd HD my other main one is a Qunatum 20gig 7200rpm ATA/66 few days ago I bought another HD a Maxtor 40gig 7200rpm ATA/100. I notice some but not much in over all system performace from the Quantum drive.. were I notice most of the diference is in converting MP3s to wav ect.. But even that differnce isnt worth going out and buying a new HD just for that speed.. but if your getting a new HD any way I would go for the ATA/100