Is it worth getting an adapter for an old ATA133 HDD ?

[DarkstyleR]

I had a Maxtor 3200 series outer HDD that I decided to open up. Inside there was a HDD model 6L320R0:
http://www.hdsentinel.com/storageinfo_details.php?lang=en&model=MAXTOR%206L320R0
I saw that it is ATA133 (although on the HDD itself it says PATA133) and I am wondering is it worth it for me to get an adapter (ata133 to sata I guess) so I can plug it into my PC ? Will the speeds be okay ? I have a asrock n68 s3 ucc mobo. I would use the ata HDD for a windows 7 OS and games on it.

 

[faalin]

speed wise you wont notice a difference between ata133 and sata. The biggest thing is going to be reliability. that drive is old, putting any information on it is going to be a big risk. For 40-50$ you can get a 500GB Western Digital Blue drive.

 

[DarkstyleR]

It has barely been used (only pluggied in 4-5 times). Surely it should't be a problem ? So no big difference between sata 3 and ata133 ? Also what kind of adapter do I need to get - can you link me to something ?

 

[jgm7683]

SATA and PATA (ATA) are completely different interfaces.

PATA are the older IDE drives - maximum data speed 133MB/s (7980 MB/min or roughly 7.5 GB/minute)
SATA use the newer interface - maximum data speed of SATA I (first generation) was 1.2GB/s, SATA II is 3GB/s, and SATAIII is 6GB/s

If you need to get access to the data (because the enclosure is no longer working, power connector broke or was lost, etc.) and your motherboard doesn't have an IDE connection, get the interface - just know that you will not get anywhere near the speeds possible with SATA due to the limitation of speed for PATA drives.

If you don't need to access it, or the external enclosure is still working well, don't bother - it's not worth the money to buy the interface.

To be honest, I don't know if you'd be able to boot off the drive if you have the interface, so your idea to put Windows 7 on it might work... it might not. It would depend on how the computer sees that interface.