ATA/33 vs ATA/100+

[darktubbly]

Hi everybody,

Having snagged a Maxtor 40 gig drive from the recent OfficeDepot blowout (thus having much lesser funds for college books...eh, priorities ) I was wondering about the ATA/100 specification.

I'm running a Celeron 400 w/192 MB RAM with mass storage devices connected to ATA/33 interfaces and my typical activities include web browsing (with 8+ IE windows, MSN, AIM, Apache, and WarFTPd being the normal load) and occassional gaming (Counterstrike).

Would the purchase of an ATA/133 controller card be worthwhile?

 

[networkman]

In my opinion, jumping up to at an ATA66 would be the most worthwhile and most noticeable with the games, and finding a used ATA66 controller for real cheap on our For Sale/Trade forum should be a breeze.

I don't know that an ATA/100 or 133 controller would really help you much given the specs of your rig, and even when you upgrade the PC, it's likely a newer board will have the faster IDE controller built onboard thus negating the need for a higher speed controller anyway.

 

[earthman]

I agree, unless you want to spend the extra money, you might get an ATA100 card...there aren't any hard drives that will burst much more than that. It is very unlikely you would even see the 66 Mbs in any kind of normal use.

 

[darktubbly]

Thank you both for your replies! I'll snag a new controller card once I get settled in at school.