• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Question about hard drive cables

I

iluvdeal

Golden Member
I was going to upgrade a system that had an 8GB hard drive in it to a 25GB harddrive. The 25GB came with a cable that had many more "lines" it, you know those little cables that make up the whole. I was wondering if I could use that old cable that I had used with the 8GB drive, it's the old school type of hard drive with fewer "lines" in it. I want to keep this cable since I had sliced it up and rounded it, there's no way I can round the other cable with the same method as I cannot cut them since the wires are so fine/thinner. Thanks for any help.
 
The cable that came with the 25GB drive is an 80-pin cable versus the 40-pin old one. 80-pin cables are needed for hard drives to be able to do ATA66 and above. You can use the old cable but the drive will only run at ATA33. I would recommend using the new one.
 
The answer to this question is yes you can but i would first take a look at the interface speed of the onboard or on controller card you are using and the interface speed of the drive. Basically what I'm saying is that if your motherboard supports ata66, ata100 or ata133 i would go with using the new (finer) 80 pin ata66/100/133 cable since it will offer slightly more of a benefit. I've read (sorry i can't remember where but its) probably at the site that is closing down that newer drives can saturate the ata33 interface with data so a new cable and interface will provide optimal performance in a new hard drive. You can also buy rounded ata66/100/133 cables that are of the 80 pin "fine" wiring but i've heard that they have too much interference and cause some data corruption or slower tansferrates since data that comes across corrupted and is recognized as such must be reaccesssed and resent until it gets across just fine. If i were you i wold go and use the new cable you were provided since i sounds to me like the drive may be very capable of being abl to use its ata66/100/133 interface and also able to saturate teh ata33 interface in some cases and slow down the performance somewhat... this may not be an exceedingly large or noticeable difference but i have never tried what you are suggesting since i think working hardware with the least bottlenecks is the key to a happy more efficent system.
 
Thanks for info. The 25GB is going into a old system (Socket 7 mobo) which doesn't support any of those recent cable interfaces so it looks like the 40pin cable should work fine. Thanks!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top