Scooby Soon!

Want a new hard drive, Whats all this ATA stuff? I have a dell computer about 18 months old and want to plug a new drive in for backups (about 200-250gb) last time I bought one there was Scsi and Eide, now they all seem to have different named plugs do the majority still just plug in to the IDE cable?

Also what make to buy and what not to buy? I was thinking about a seagate? anygood? I have a Maxtor as a second drive and **** me is it noisy its like some one badly playing a violin!!!

Any help always appreciated!

jpor

iTrader: (1)

Here you go:

What are ATA, ATAPI, IDE, EIDE, ... ?
ATA and ATAPI are the real names for the mass storage device interface that is frequently called IDE and EIDE. IDE and EIDE are mostly used by marketing people who do not know what they are selling and by writers for magazines who do not know what they are writing about.

What does ATA mean? It stands for AT Attachment but most people don't remember what an AT is anymore (anyone remember the IBM PC/AT?). And what about ATAPI? It stands for ATA Packet Interface.

ATA/ATAPI is the most popular device interface today. Of the approximately 140 million hard disk drives made in the last year, 90+ percent are ATA. The remainder are various types of SCSI inteface drives. And the vast majority of CD-ROM drives are ATAPI devices. Most PCMCIA and CFA mass storage devices are also ATA or ATAPI devices.

I hope that helps about the E-IDE and ATA.

To answer your other question will an ATA drive fit your PC. Then yes, but you may need to get a BIOS update done to your system to accept bigger ATA-IDE drives.

stiscooby

The newer type of drive is the "Serial ATA" disks, although they have been out a while now.

They are a bit faster than the IDE disks but they are a different type of connection so you will need to make sure that your PC has a SATA connector on the motherboard, failing this you can get a expansion card that goes into a spare PCI slot on your motherboard and you can then run a SATA drive off of that.

If you can run one in your PC you want to go for a SATA disk over an IDE.

jpor

iTrader: (1)

Also be aware that you need a good Power Supply Unit and special power plug adapters for SATA drives, as these do not use the standard 4-pin plugs you can plug IDE devices onto.

Scooby Soon!

Thanks for the info, one 250gb drive already ordered

boomer

Ya may have missed the boat, but in the ALDI summer sale they are flogging 250GB, 7200rpm, 8MB cache E-IDE hard drives (actually the Western Digital Caviar SE, model WD2500JB) with a 3yr warranty for £59-99.

I managed to get one (after visiting half a dozen stores) and will be fitting it when i can buy a 3.5 to 5.25 converter bracket (something that PC World don't sell )

mb

stevencotton

The AT means Advanced Technology, it's opposed to the XT rather than PC.

unfeasablylargegonads

iTrader: (3)

remember that quite a few SATA drives will need you to install a driver before they work correctly, just something to look out for

jpor

iTrader: (1)

Thats right. XT meaning eXisting Technology.

_Meridian_

iTrader: (1)

Many SATA drives use old and new-style plugs, so the standard Molex connectors on your PSU will be fine. But check. This is true of most WD and Maxtor drives for instance.


M