ATA 133 in Dim 4550?

[andrewchen46]

Does the Dim 4550 mobo support running hard drives at ATA 133?

 

[Windogg]

ATA133 is "officially" supported by Maxtor and VIA. Intel only went as fasr as ATA100. To be honest, ATA133 is marketing hype. No IDE device can really stress ATA66 let alone ATA100. You are not losing anything between ATA100 and ATA133.

All IDE devices are forwards and backwars compatible with other ATA standard. So a ATA66 drive will work fine on a ATA100 controller and a ATA133 device will work just fine on a ATA33 controller, etc.

Windogg

 

[theanimala]

Thought I would reply to this post rather then start my own. I also have a dell 4550 (533mhz bus) with a 30gb hd. I just picked up a Maxtor 160GB which came with the PCI ata133 card. I have free slots, so should I use the card or just stick the new hard drive on the first IDE bus?

 

[tyipengr]

The Dell 4550s use the i845PE which uses the ICH2, ATA100 only, no ATA133. As said earlier by another poster, ATA133 is nice but it isn't going to impact performance much if at all. I personally tend to like to use ide drive controllers embedded in the chipset rather than running off the PCI bus.

So andrewchen46, an ATA133 drive running on a Dell 4550 will run at ATA100 mode will little or no performance loss.

theanimala1, I'd sell the card on ebay, not sure how much you would get tho. Remember to mention the brand of the card.

 

[jsalpha2]

Its probabily a promise card. I'd keep the card and run each hard drive off its own cable as master, but thats just me. It also looks nicer if you have a window and rounded cables.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: theanimala
Thought I would reply to this post rather then start my own. I also have a dell 4550 (533mhz bus) with a 30gb hd. I just picked up a Maxtor 160GB which came with the PCI ata133 card. I have free slots, so should I use the card or just stick the new hard drive on the first IDE bus?

as long as all 160GB can be recognized by the intel controller than that would be fine. drive should be set to cable select so just plug it into the cable thats in the computer