Hard Disks

legofsalmon

Okay I'm thinking of buying a new hard disk as a slave to the one I have in already which is nearly full.

I'm looking at 80 gig + in the storage area. But in looking I came across some jargon that I'm wondering if anyone could help me with?

what is/is there any difference between ATA, SATA, UATA. which should I go for?

also there are two maxtor models which say they have 2mg and and 8 meg cache respectively, what does that mean?

any help would be much appreciated

Tivoli

legofsalmon wrote:

Okay I'm thinking of buying a new hard disk as a slave to the one I have in already which is nearly full.

I'm looking at 80 gig + in the storage area. But in looking I came across some jargon that I'm wondering if anyone could help me with?

what is/is there any difference between ATA, SATA, UATA. which should I go for?

also there are two maxtor models which say they have 2mg and and 8 meg cache respectively, what does that mean?

any help would be much appreciated

heres simple for you...



ata sata and uata-
if you have a sata compatibal motherboard, buy a sata because its faster
if not buy a "uata/ata" (their 2 of the same thing)

tbh you don't need to know what they mean, just post up the model of your motherboard and we'll tell you if you can take sata


about cache, its just a small chunk of memory on the drive, so that when you save something or load something, it wont cause a slow down like a floopy disk does
the bigger the faster, get the 8mb

maxheadroom

Also consider that maxtor hard drives run noisily and hot. They have had a poor reputation for reliability in the past.

Samsung Spinpoint drives and Seagate Barracudas have a good rep for low noise, cool running, and reliability.

Tivoli

maxheadroom wrote:

Also consider that maxtor hard drives run noisily and hot. They have had a poor reputation for reliability in the past.

Samsung Spinpoint drives and Seagate Barracudas have a good rep for low noise, cool running, and reliability.

very good point, definately dont buy a maxtor

i recommend the seagate 120gig 7200rpm with 8mb cache here , i have fitted about 20 of them into xbox's and 3 into pc's and all were and still are running perfectly, their dirt cheap too, i even have a 5 of them here if you want to get one in a hurry!

Captain Trips

maxheadroom wrote:

Also consider that maxtor hard drives run noisily and hot. They have had a poor reputation for reliability in the past.

Samsung Spinpoint drives and Seagate Barracudas have a good rep for low noise, cool running, and reliability.

I've been using a 40GB Maxtor for 3 years and never had problems, recently put in a 160GB version ATA133. Similar no probs. I think it depends on the specific product run as different IBM drives also had reliability issues.

legofsalmon

thanks guys, the help is very much appreciated! just upgrading a little to get another few years from this pc before i shell out for a new one.

that seagate barricuda looks perfect to be honest. mainly because of the price!!!! thats not a trade price is it?

Jammer

there is a difference between ATA and UATA...UATA is Ultra ATA...and ATA is just, well, ATA...dunno the specifics, but there must be a difference?

Nope, its not trade, but factor in delivery.

RicardoSmith

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/U/Ultra_ATA.html

version of the AT Attachment (ATA) standard that supports burst mode data transfer rates of 33.3 MBps. To take advantage of these high speeds, your computer must also be equipped with Ultra DMA, a protocol that supports faster data transfer rates to and from hard disk drives.

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/A/ATA.html

Short for Advanced Technology Attachment, a disk drive implementation that integrates the controller on the disk drive itself. There are several versions of ATA, all developed by the Small Form Factor (SFF)
ATA: Known also as IDE, supports one or two hard drives, a 16-bit interface and PIO modes 0, 1 and 2.
ATA-2: Supports faster PIO modes (3 and 4) and multiword DMA modes (1 and 2). Also supports logical block addressing (LBA) and block transfers. ATA-2 is marketed as Fast ATA and Enhanced IDE (EIDE).
ATA-3: Minor revision to ATA-2.
Ultra-ATA: Also called Ultra-DMA, ATA-33, and DMA-33, supports multiword DMA mode 3 running at 33 MBps.
ATA/66: A version of ATA proposed by Quantum Corporation, and supported by Intel, that doubles ATA's throughput to 66 MBps.
ATA/100: An updated version of ATA/66 that increases data transfer rates to 100 MBps.

ATA also is called Parallel ATA. Contrast with Serial ATA.

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/Serial_ATA.html

Often abbreviated SATA or S-ATA, an evolution of the Parallel ATA physical storage interface. Serial ATA is a serial link -- a single cable with a minimum of four wires creates a point-to-point connection between devices. Transfer rates for Serial ATA begin at 150MBps. One of the main design advantages of Serial ATA is that the thinner serial cables facilitate more efficient airflow inside a form factor and also allow for smaller chassis designs. In contrast, IDE cables used in parallel ATA systems are bulkier than Serial ATA cables and can only extend to 40cm long, while Serial ATA cables can extend up to one meter.

That about covers it I think

RicardoSmith

mukki wrote:

about cache, its just a small chunk of memory on the drive, so that when you save something or load something, it wont cause a slow down like a floopy disk does
the bigger the faster, get the 8mb

Not sure if thats clear.

Its slow to read and write to a hard disk compared to other types of memory. Also its quite common for the computer to need to read and write to the same bit of information a few times before its finished with it. So rather than do this from the slow hard disk, they put some fast memory in the drive to act as temporary storage to hold these bits of data. So the computer doesn't need to access the slow hard disk as often. Once the comuter is finished with the data its written to the main harddrive.

Its like having the phone book on your desk, rather than in a filing cabinet on the far side of the room every time you look up a number.

Obviously the bigger the cache the more data it can hold, thus the faster the drive will be. It only works for smaller bits of data though, so therefore its only faster in some situations. But in general, a drive with more cache will be faster than one with less cache.

Same thing applies to CPU's.

OfflerCrocGod

Since this will be purely for storage ( I'm inferring this from your post ) going for 8MB cache is pointless and if you want to save more cash look for a 5'200RPM drive which will be quieter and cooler meaning it will last longer: this is if storage is your main worry and nothing else.

MarkR

He'll still need to access the data, so speed is still a point...

daramullally

Apologies for intruding on your thread.......I am also thinking of adding another drive but I am not sure what is compatible with my system. The motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-7VM400M. I mainly use the PC for AVI to DVD converting etc. I have been looking at a German website - www.arlt.de -
Festplatte, IDE, 160 GB, 7200U/min., UDMA 100, IBM/Hitachi HDS722516VLAT80 Deskstar 7K250, 8MB Cache, bulk 92.99 €

Festplatte, IDE, 160 GB, 7200U/min., UDMA 100, Samsung SP1604N, 2MB, bulk 87.99 €

Festplatte, IDE, 160 GB, 7200U/min., UDMA 100, Seagate ST3160021A, bulk 93.98 €

Festplatte, IDE, 160 GB, 7200U/min., UDMA 100, Seagate ST3160023A, 8MB, bulk 97.99 €

Festplatte, IDE, 160 GB, 7200U/min., UDMA 133, Samsung SP1614N, 8MB, bulk 94.99 €

I am unsure whether UDMA 100 or 133 is OK for my machine.

Any ideas?

Cheers
Dara

RicardoSmith

UDMA 100 or 133 are compatible with each other so eithers fine. Your board has ATA133 so you might aswell go for the 133 though I think the speed difference over a 100 is minimal.