A Question for Slackmaster2K

[Mountaineer]

Slackmaster,

My computer, a Dell XPS R400, has the 440 chipset that doesn't support ATA/66, yet, I want to upgrade my main hard drive to 7200 RPM with 2 MB cache. I want to stay with EIDE and have two options.

1 ) buy an IBM ATA3 ( ultra ) 22 Gb 7200RPM 2Mb Cache for around $225 . . .which my motherboard will support.

2 ) buy a Promise PCI card ( $30 ) that will give me two ATA/66 connections. Then purchase any ATA/66 hard drive . . . a 27.5 Gb Quantam or IBM is going for aound $200-$225.

Either way, I'm out about the same amount of cash, but I can't seem to find anyone who can tell me wether or not the ATA/66 is better than Ultra when Speed and Cache memory are the same. Any thoughts on this ? Thanks !

PAPicker

 

[Slackmaster2K]

ANY EIDE hard drive will work on your existing controller...and *should* run in UDMA/33 mode. That is, ATA/66 drives are backwards compatible...you don't NEED a special controller.

As to whether 66 is better than 33....I've read several articles now that have lead me to believe that there is little if any difference between the two at this time. ATA/66 shows promise however, especially with faster 10,000RPM drives that should be appearing soon.

Get an ATA/66 drive, don't worry about getting a controller unless the drive refuses to operate correctly on your existing controller (e.g. see sonusman's thread about Maxtor drives).

BTW, that price seems a little steep. You might want to loo

Slackmaster 2000

 

[Mountaineer]

Slackmaster,
Thanks for the info. So, even though my motherboard won't support ATA/66, the drive will function in ATA/33 mode . . . hummmm.
I'm willing to give it a try. The worst that could happen is that I have to buy the controller card later. Oh, and you were correct . . . the cost for a 20GB IBM 7200RPM @ 8.5ms with a 2MB cache is $176. The Quantum is the same speed but with only a 512Mb cache for $156. I think the extra $20 is worth it.
Thanks again for the response.

Regards,
PAPicker