old HD's vs. ATA-66

[Boiker]

i havn't bought a hard drive in a long time. actually the last time i bought one, it cost me $300 for 3.1GB

i have a AMD K6-2 450 w/ 128MB RAM. my MB is ATA-66 compat. What kind of performance increase will i see?

 

[Mday]

ata66 drives perform no better (or a little better) than the best of the ata33 variety.

and since your drive is so damn old, getting a newer one (no matter if 7200 rpm or ata66 or ata100) would improve loading of programs and your basic transfer speeds noticeably.

there is no way of know what kind of performance increase, but there will be an increase. of course you should use FAT32, but only if you are running a FAT32 capable OS.

what motherboard do you have?

 

[Boiker]

epox EP-MVP3G2

http://www.epox.com/html/english/products/motherboard/ep-mvp3g.htm

 

[Ulysses]

Almost all new drives are ATA/66 types today but their spindle speed may vary. The better ones are 7200 rpm, the cheaper ones are 5400 rpm. A good choice might be a Western Digital 7200 rpm drive - they're not the top dog any more but are reasonably priced and reliable. The WD's are actually made by IBM, but their drives are more expensive.

Take a look at AnandTech's monthly Buyer's Guides - they have a High End and a Value Guide each month with a bunch of different configurations for any budget.

A better hard drive will improve your PC's performance.

 

[4824guy]

You probably won't notice any difference between ata66 and ata33 hd performance. The only way to really know if is working correctly is to do benchmark testing.

Just get a 7200rpm drive as your master/boot drive. You will definately notice the faster speed there over the 5400 rpm units. Plus, like the others have stated, the newer HD's will probably be ata66 compable anyways.