Ultra-ATA vs Ultra-DMA

[zeafido]

I'm thinking to buy a new hard drive, either to get : 1)20.5GB EIDE ULTRA-ATA/66 7200RPM 2MB FIREBALL PLUS LM
or
2)20.5GB WESTERN DIGITAL CAVIAR XL EIDE 7200RPM ULTRA-ATA/66
(any suggestion? which one is better? )

anyway, the real problem of mine is, I don't know if my motherboard can support Ultra-ATA interface, because my current hard drives is Ultra-DMA. Are there any significant differences between the 2? Do I need special cable or drivers for Ultra-ATA? I have a generic motherboard with most stuffs build in, here's some specs of my motherboard :
Super Socket 7 Micro ATX Motherboard with the following
features:
-512K Pipelined Burst Cache
-Supports from 60 MHz to 100 MHz Bus Speeds
-Supports AMD, Cyrix/IBM, and Intel (P54C/P55C) CPUs
-Onboard Multi I/O and Peripheral Interface
-3 168-Pin DIMM Sockets, 3 PCI + 1 ISA Expansion Slots
-Onboard 2M Flash ROM supports complete ACPI and Legacy PMU
-Provides Trend's ChipAway Virus to ensure boot process is Virus Free
-Built-in Hardware Monitor Circuit
-Supports ATX Power Functions

And I'm using AMD K6-2 550Mhz processor. Is it advisable to use ATA with my motherboard?

 

[AndyHui]

Ultra ATA and Ultra DMA are the same thing.

Those 2 drives are ATA66 capable, and need a motherboard chipset capable of ATA66 as well as an ATA66 cable.

Your motherboard (you have not given a model name) appears to be an older type and unlikely to support ATA66, but may support ATA33.

ATA66 drives are backwards compatible with ATA33. You may need a BIOS update as these are large IDE drives and your motherboard BIOS may not be able to handle these sizes.

I personally have the Quantum LM....it's a very nice drive, but a little noisy compared to other similar drives.

 

[zeafido]

I donno what's the model of the motherboard nor the manufacturer. I'm using 13.6GB Samsung SpinPoint SVD1363D hard drives now, from Samsung's web, it says under features : Fast ATA-4/EIDE Interface and Ultra DMA 33/66 Data Transfer Rate...

since my motherboard is working well with the Samsung drive, does it mean that it'll also support Quantum's drive as Ultra ATA and Ultra DMA are the same thing? and if the motherboard does not able to support ATA66, does it mean that I couldn't use that drive without a Bios upgrade? Thanks for the help!