ATA Compatibility

[Guest]

Hey guys I have an old p2 300 machine, with an aopen MB that supports ATA/33. I am shopping around for a new hard drive, but I only seem to find ata/66 or ata/100, my question is are all the ATAs compatible, if I were to buy a ATA/100 for example would it work on my computer?? thanks.

 

[Toejam31]

Yes, the newer drives (and the cables) are backwards compatible, and will run at the older, lower bandwidth and speed settings. That would happen automatically with an ATA/66 or ATA/100 drive, simply by being on a regular 40 pin, 40 conductor cable.

The best thing you could do would be to purchase a relatively inexpensive ATA/100 controller card, and then connect the new drive. That will give you some upgrading ability, without having to change the mainboard, and the faster drive will give your system a nice performance boost.

The way I look at it ... if you are willing to consider the purchase of a larger, fast drive ... what's another $30-$35 dollars for a controller card? That will also give you another 4 IDE ports, which will allow for other, faster devices in the future.

Food for thought.

Toejam31

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