200GB

[funow48103]

hi all
i just bought a 200 Gb WB 8MB cache.
it did come with an Ultra ATA controller card.
now my question is would i loose performance since i'll be using the card instead of connecting the HD directely to the Motherboard throught the IDE connection?
also i've heard that some of the motherboard that support ATA 133 might support larger HD ( larger that 137GB) without using the controller card? is it true?
and over all , is it worthed to get a such large HD or not?
would a smaller HD be faster than a larger one? or size does not matter?

any suggestion? any recommandation??

thank you all

 

[dew042]

generally - larger hdds are faster overall.

yes, ata133 supports over 137gb natively.

shouldn't be a performance loss with the ata card, but you can always try it out and do some hdd tests to be sure....

sandra should do it fine....

dew.

 

[funow48103]

thanks for the fast reply
i know for a fact my mothboard support ATA 66/100, so for sure it won't work for HD larger than 137GB.
i'm plannign to sell it any way.
would you recommande any nice, inexpensive board ( just above $100 ok, but not far from it) that has ATA 133??

thank you

 

[Trashman]

what board, cpu, memory and OS are you running now?

 

[funow48103]

i'm running a p4 2.53 Ghz, intel D845PEBT2, 512 MB pc2700 ( possibly i'll be adding an other 512 MB) , 100GB WD 8MB cache, and Win XP pro SP1

 

[Trashman]

I believe that board supports large hd drives "48bit LBA "...so you may not have to use controller card....trying to look for info to back me up.

 

[Trashman]

found it...off Intels website.
One of the features of the Intel Desktop Board D845PEBT2 is its ability to support larger ATA/100 capable hard drives with 48-bit Logical Block Addressing (LBA) within the BIOS along with all Ultra ATA transfer rates (i.e., 33 MB/sec, 66 MB/sec and 100 MB/sec). To realize a true throughput performance difference, a hard drive may need to implement higher spindle speeds, such as 7200 RPM, and a large onboard buffer size to take advantage of the increased bandwidth available on the IDE channel.

 

[GnomeCop]

just hook it up and see if it works?


its not like their is valuable data on it right?

 

[EeyoreX]

The spec for ATA100 does allow for drives over 137GB. If your board has support for ATA100 your drive should work without the controller. You may need a BIOS update. There are NO drives that REQUIRE a card with a spec of ATA133. The ATA133 spec was essentially created by Maxtor, and supported by Promise (not sure if Highpoint or any other company makes ATA133 cards) to bilk unsuspecting consumers of their cash. ATA66 is not likey to be taxed by most any modern PC, so ATA100 adds things like support for 48-bit LBA. ATA133 was created by Maxtor's marketing people to collect money from peoploe who think "A bigger number after the ATA means it is faster" when in fact, there is no real performance gain at all. You need support for 48-bit LBA only, which ATA100 provides not only ATA133. ATA133 does of course, also support 48-bit LBA.

[EDIT] I forgot to mention, that the retail edition of WD 200GB SE drive comes with the Promise Ultra 100 TX2 controller, which is an ATA100 card, not ATA133.

\Dan

 

[funow48103]

i did not open the HD yet, so it might be the ATA 100 that did come with it.
but as far as a diffrent motherboard that supports ATA133, which one should i choose?

 

[peter7921]

Like other people have already mentioned, your motherboard supports large Hard Drives. There is no need for a different board. Intel makes some of the best boards on the market and the only thing better than the 845PE chipset chipset are the Canterwood and Upcoming Springdale chipsets(The 850 is also but you would have to change RAM).

 

[funow48103]

thank you all for all the info, i'll be putting my HD within the next week, i'll let you know how did it turn.

might be it will seems simple for you guys, but besides hooking up the HD, i don't need to touch the BIOS, or flash the board?? right?

thank you

 

[Trashman]

i don't need to touch the BIOS, or flash the board?? right?

I wouldn't think you would have to, but...ya never know.
Don't flash your board unless you have to, so wait till ya get the drive....hook it up, and hope that everything goes well.