UltraDMA 133 and ATA 133

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Ares

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Here's 2 questions i'm a bit confused about. I'm still learning so... here goes...

1. One board lists IDE Drives as ATA 133, another lists UltraDMA 133... what's the difference?

When i look at hard drive specs i dont see any that say UltraDMA on them, they sell as either ATA 100, 133, 66 or 33. If i get a board that says it takes UltraDMA 133 drives, should i just assume that means ata 133? They really should centralize all these different naming schemes. They only make it confusing for us newbies on purpose!

2. Would an ide drive thats ATA 100 run on a board that has IDE ATA 133? Would an ide drive thats ATA 133 run on a board that's IDE ATA 100?

Was that 3 questions? LoL.
 
good questions Ares. the IDE interface types your mobo supports are called UltraDMA (133/100/66/33). this is the term used for the IDE controller on mobo. for IDE devices like hard disk they call it ATA (133/100/66/33). this is the term for the device interface.

your device will run at the weakest link:

example1: your mobo has a max of UDMA 100 and you connect a ATA133 disk to it. your hard disk will only run at ATA100 since this is the max support of the mobo

example2: your mobo support UDMA133 and your disk is ATA100. your hard disk will only run at ATA100 instead of the mobo max of UDMA100.

note: you should be aware the IDE controller is not physically on the mobo anymore. it is actually on the hard disk. this used to be true back in the earlier days of computing.

so when they refer to IDE controller just know it is talking about the IDE connections on mobo, but technically it is integrated into the disk itself
 
Thanks, you cleared me up on that. Basically, it's ok to cross-switch the two (number wise) although it wouldn't be entirely efficient to do so.

To make it easier on myself, and most efficient, i'm matching up the numbers on the systems i'm building. The ultraDMA 133 mainboard is getting an ata 133 hard drive.

Thanks again.
 
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