an ATA-100 HDD and a i440BX/ZX chipset

[Battousai1]

well Im having doubts about my new 20 gig maxtor hdd, it is written in the case that it is a ATA-100, it worked fine with my motherboard and CPU, (I had a 10 gig Maxtor recently and crashed then replaced with the 20 gig) but my question is it alright to install a ATA-100 HDD on my motherboard (Tomato ZX98-AT/ATX) i440 BX/ZX chipset, my system is running at 100 Mhz FSB

 

[mothman]

According to Maxtor's website support all their UDMA
hard drives are backward compatable.
Just read this last night, I was wondering the same about
there ATA133 drives.

 

[bacillus]

the IDE hdds are backwards compatible which means the newer hdds will work with the older boards.
you'll need to check if your bios will see the full size of the larger hdds though! 🙂

 

[Battousai1]

 

[Battousai1]

 

[Battousai1]

if it is backward compatible will there be no problems? will my HDD will be in good hands, btw I already updated the bios of my board too, it can support up to 40 GB does this mean it has a ATA100 capability?

 

[bacillus]

<< does this mean it has a ATA100 capability? >>


the hdd will only run at transfers you board supports which is most likely udma2(ata33)!
for ata100 capability, you'll need a pci ata100 or 133 card! 🙂

 

[Battousai1]

well actually when enabled the DMA box on the system setings on windows control panel i experienced overall speed burst and tried sisoft sandra, what would be the added speed if i used a ata100/133 pci card?

 

[bacillus]

<< what would be the added speed if i used a ata100/133 pci card? >>


the newer hdds have a STR(sustained transfer rate) of well over 40Mb/s which exceeds the udma2 maximum of 33Mb/s.
you'll be able to use that extra thoroughput if you use an ata66,100 or 133 card! 🙂