Ultra ATA 100 vs ATA 133

[episodic]

Considering this drive. . .


http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=22-148-015&depa=1


Is this going to run as UDMA 5 or UDMA 4?

Is the Ultra ATA 100 the same thing as ATA 133?

In other words is this drive as fast as one that says ATA 133. . .

Thanks for clarification. . .

 

[Mday]

no, and no.

ATA133 = Maxtor owned technology that was never adopted by the industry (see http://www.t13.org/ which is the governing body of ATA). ATA 100 was the LAST T13 ratified specification for ATA before the adoption of SATA150 as "current" standard.

Controllers can be ata133, they can label it as compatible, maxtor lets them do that. Other drive manufacturers can't and won't label theirs ata133 since maxtor owns it and doing so would mean, "omg maxtor pwns, i gotta get 133"...

ATA100 is fine. Drives aren't that fast anyway, and you know what, your system won't let any device run at the full 133MBps of the PCI bus anyway.

 

[Arcanedeath]

Samsung is the only other HDD maker that produces UDMA6 eg Ultra ATA 133 devices. Anyone that wants to produce an Ata 133 device has to pay Maxtor a fee (with the exception of the controlers) to do so.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Yeah, ATA-133/UDMA mode 6 is patented by Quantum, which was bought/merged with Maxtor. In terms of real-world differences between the two interface speeds, there is none. No current HD even really approaches the speed of ATA-100, nevermind ATA-133. By the time that they do, we will all be using SATA-2 interfaces anyways. (2 years, maybe?)

 

[CraigRT]

I hate the whole ATA/100/133 thing.. ATA/66 is essentially all that you will need.. all of my hard drives are ATA/100 and I still use my Promise TX2 ATA/100 card.

never buy a drive based on the fact it has a higher ATA rating than another drive!!! (just a tip after the rant)