AT66 compatability

[dukefett]

Hi, my friend wanted to get a new HD, so i pointed him to a site w/ one, but it said at133, and i just wanted to double check that he'd have no problem with it, i figured the HD would just slow to whatever it's connected to, thanks

 

[The_Mage18]

ATA 133 runs all the way down to PIO Mode 4 (pre ATA 33 speed).

What may really be a problem is whether or not his motherboard's BIOS can recognize a large capacity drive. A lot of other motherboards can only use hard drives up to 40GB or 60GB or so. Before he goes and plunks a 250GB monster in have him check with the mobo maker's website on the largest supported drive first and base his choice off of that.

 

[Dark Ember]

Yeah, ATA133 drives will slow down to whatever speed the host will synch at. So it should work fine in that respect.

Also, what Mage said is a good idea. If he's looking at getting a drive >137 GB, the BIOS will need to support it. Also if he's running Windows XP, he'll need at least SP1, and SP2 in Win2k to access the entire drive.

 

[Vertigo Acid]

And that's all ignoring the fact that ATA133 is just a Maxtor marketing term anyway, and even modern 7200RPM drives are just barely hitting 66mb/s, by Storagereview's reckoning.
LBA is a bigger worry than bandwidth in this situation