ultra ata

[spilot]

i was looking to purchase this babe:

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProduc...factory=BROWSE

but just now noticed that it's not serial ata, but "ultra"....i'm still all knew to this, but what's the difference, if any?

[Shabow]

From what I understand Ultra ATA 100 is essentially IDE. So Serial ATA is far better, but it is a nice drive 7200 RPM and I think I saw 8mb of Cache.

[spilot]

cool, i found the sata with the same specs for $8 more, so i'll go with the sata just to be on a safe side

[bfcx]

you'll need serial ata drives to go with that card too (wich are more expencive if you want the preformance) You cannot interchange Paralell ATA with Serial ATA.

If you want to use your Ultra ATA drives with your Serial ATA card you'll need addaptors, it wont increase speed, just cost more.

So if you have no drives and want SATA, you'll have to buy SATA drives, but if you have existing drives they are probably UltraATA.

Also if it's a PCI card your PCI bus is slower than SATA is so your not really gaining much preformance by using it on your PCI bus, Intel 875 Motherboards have SATA built into the northbridge so it can run at full speed (150mbps)

[teengeek88]

i think its just a fancy term personally

ur supposed to get it with a UATA cable so you can supposedly get higher thouroughput than regular ATA. prolly BS. and remember 100 is the peak speed, not always exactly that speed

definitley go with SATA if u can

His board will support the SATA drive.

The difference between ATA and Ultra ATA is (as far as I know), ATA only has 40 pin cables, ATA33 is the fastest it'll go. UATA66 - 133 is the 80 pin cables. They'll still support the slower ATA33 speed, but no one makes ATA33 or even 66 discs anymore so it's not very important if you're buying new.

I'd recommend the Western Digital SATA drives, spilot. They have a standard 4 pin molex power connector where the Seagates require a special connector I believe.

[jmichna]

Good reference info re ATA and IDE standards in general:
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/std.htm