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Ulta DMA is ATA/100 ??

T2urtle

T2urtle

Diamond Member
Ok so i've been looking at some of the cheaper bundle computers that are in the 100-300$ area after rebates and i think i wanted to pick one up. Upon looking at the specs. of a HP a1200y i found the hard-drive to be a Ultra DMA. I've googled it for a while to and found that ATA/100 shows up a lot next to it. I'm looking to try and upgrade that HD right off the bat mainly because 40GB isn't going to cut it. So i wanted to expand on a 2nd hard-drive. But i don't know what type. Can someone shine some light on this for me. I'm adware of serial ATA and standard ATA drives but Ultra DMA is off the wall for me

And are these drives hard to find and priced any higher then the run of the mill IDE/ SATA stuff.


Also with a chipset of " ATI Radeon Xpress 200" would you assume that it aleast has a AGP slot or nothing at all. The specs on the site didn't state if i had one. just stated it has 3 PCi's and 2 are open.
 
From your description, it sounds awfully likely that the hard drive has a 40-pin "regular" IDE connector, technical terminology hair-splitting aside (edit: meaning, you could use any drive with a 40-pin Parallel ATA interface).

Why would you buy a computer where you can't find out the specs, though? What brand/model are we talking about, anyway, maybe I can Google the specs down.
 
To answer the title question:
Ultra DMA has different levels. I know UDMA 2 is ATA/33, and I think UDMA 5 is ATA/100.

Here we go.

UDMA 0 = PIO Mode 4?
UDMA 1 = 25MB/sec
UDMA 2 = 333MB/sec - ATA/33
UDMA 3 = 44.4MB/sec
UDMA 4 = 66MB/sec - ATA/66
UDMA 5 = 100MB/sec - ATA/100
 
First in a effort to save money there is PROBABLY NO AGP or PCI express on that mobo.
Now the important stuff, Ultra ata 100 is older stuff. New comps use Sata 150 or 300. ( the numbers are megabites per sec.) Some hdd's are ata 133(Maxtor)
The mobo may have sata but probably not. For you to upgrade get a 7200 rpm hard drive with the biggest buffer u can (older hdd's were 2mb newer ones are 8mb and the best ones are 16mb buffer)
There is a good chance the 40 gig hdd is a 5400 rpm. You definately want to replace that, not just add to it.

You should be able to build a much better comp for $400 to $450

PS it has a 80 pin cable. Anything above ata66 needs a 80 pin cable or its real slow.
 
i found the specs.

i stated the model number in my post thats how i came to start looking for ultra dma

The computer i'm looking at right now is a HP a1200y. specs on the computer is celeron D 341. 256mb 40gb.

THe bundle that office depot has is this with a 17 in CRt and a printer for 150$ AR. I'm not going to do much with it mainly download a lot of movies and music. I know i'll have to drop in another 512mb stick of ram and up the HD space for it to do what i want. But i don't know how much a Ultra DMA is going to cost me. I'm just not understanding what type of hard-drive it has to be. UDMA refers to ATA plus w/e speed it runs under. I haven't seen any normal ATA HD at the computer store only EIDE and SATA.


upon looking at this a little more i'm even more confused.

http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopp...s&catLevel=3&tab_switch=true&tab=specs

the specs states " 40GB 7200 rpm Ultra DMA Hard Drive " right there

and when i pull up the motherboard specs

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/docu...oduct=1829053&dlc=en&docname=c00590356

it shows 4 SATA spots... So what gives in this case. Can i just buy SATA HD's

 
Notice that the computer's chassis does not have lots of bays to put drives into. But if the specs are as shown, you can add any 40-pin ATA drive, provided you can figure out a place in the chassis to put it.
 
I did notice lack of space to upgrade anything.

Why are there slots for SATA and the 40pin ones as well, might you have a clue on to why that is
 
Forget the word Ultra. There is nothing ultra bout it.
If the comp has a 7200 rpm hdd than cool.
You can use them both ata and sata. but y? Just add more memory and enjoy.

There is no reason to upgrade a computer like that.
And to be honest do you really need more than 40 gigs? You can always get a External (usb2.0) harddrive if u need it.

You should plan on 1 gig of memory. Than enjoy
 
Well like i said i'm not doing super things with this. just a budget system to store my dvd's and music.

i wanted to throw in this
http://shop3.outpost.com/product/4008252?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

along with another stick fo 256mb. Since i only have 2 slots. and then call it a day.

actually i might just swap the orginal for this one instead. Can i reuse the XP key on this and use it as a fresh install key. Or does HP have some type of thing where i cnat use the key.
 
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