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Buying a new Hard Drive... HELP

  • 01-07-2002 8:50am
    #1
    daveg
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,683 ✭✭✭


    I'm buying 2 new hard drives. I think I'm going to go for a Maxtor 40Gb and 80Gb drive 7200rpm (one is for me and the other is for a freind).

    My question is what type of drive should I buy ???

    I presume i should buy IDE but there are different interface variations DMA/EIDE/EIO/IDEATA/ ??
    some come with ATA/133 PCI Card ?? Do you need a PCI card with a hard drive ?? Also do I need to check the specification of my motherboard ?? also do I need to buy a bare drive or a kit. Do I need 3.5inch ?

    Any help would be much appriciated.


Comments

  • #2
    spongebob
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,143 ✭✭✭spongebob


    Simply

    if your PC is pII or later either will work fine because of cable etc

    A PII or early PIII will operate as an ATA33

    A late PIII early PIV will operate as an ATA66 (same cable)

    A later PIV will operate as an ATA100 (same cable)

    It would be pointless to get an ATA 133 card for anything under 1Ghz....even if the hard drive works with it. I am not sure if the cable has changed recently...eg between ata100 and ata133

    The rest of the stuff only matters at the high end, if you are microtuning and overclocking your system to get every last ounce of performance outta it, if you need space then the drives will work.

    M


  • #3
    JustHalf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,525 ✭✭✭JustHalf


    Ah well, I guess my P233 with UDMA66 is lying to me.


  • #4
    Saruman
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,389 ✭✭✭✭Saruman


    daveg to avoid confusion... just get an ATA 133. Its backward compatible so will run at whatever ATA version your mobo supports. No you dont need another card, unless you want one that is... its not needed. I used to have one and the only reason was i had more than 4 ide devices so the promise ultra 66 card was handy. Dont have that problem any more as my new system i put together has IDE raid as well as normal IDE so i can have 8 devices now!! yay!


  • #5
    JustHalf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,525 ✭✭✭JustHalf


    ATA/133 isn't entirely backwards compatible. A 160gig drive won't work with ATA/100, for example.

    Tell us what your motherboard is.


  • #6
    daveg
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,683 ✭✭✭daveg


    Folks thanks a million for you help. It is much appriciated.

    My own system is:
    Legand QDI advance 5.133E motherboard
    pentium 3 733
    384MB ram
    Geforce 2 64MB
    20GB HD
    will probably upgrade at some stage soon

    My mates pc spec is...
    MSI ULTRA 645 DDR 333 MOTHERBOARD
    P4 1.7 GHZ
    Geforce 3 titanium

    were both looking at an Matrox 80GB HD 7200rpm.

    BTW have a site that sells the HD is selling for €110 in Europe (not including shipping) if anyone wants the site let me know.


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