Adding IDE/ATA133 card
- Thread starter newbie97
- Start date
The difference between ATA133 and ATA66 may not be as big as you expect, especially if you are only using one device on the channel, as few drives can pull data off the platters at anything approaching their max ATA channel speed.
I have an ATA66 system and drive (drive formerly run with an ATA/16 controller)
HDTACH - http://www.tcdlabs.com/hdtach.htm - shows about 55Mb/s as the burst (from buffer) speed, and 24 Mb/s (with typical ZBR mode falloff) as the initial sequential speed.
So I WAS losing real speed in my old system, but would only be losing artificial buffer rate if I only had ATA33.
With two drives on the same cable, though, more chance of good throughput from both on ATA66 - although ATA is not very efficient at sharing channels.
I expect the same general profile on a faster drive - dropping a single ATA133 drive down to ATA66 would probably not really cut into the available performance
I have an ATA66 system and drive (drive formerly run with an ATA/16 controller)
HDTACH - http://www.tcdlabs.com/hdtach.htm - shows about 55Mb/s as the burst (from buffer) speed, and 24 Mb/s (with typical ZBR mode falloff) as the initial sequential speed.
So I WAS losing real speed in my old system, but would only be losing artificial buffer rate if I only had ATA33.
With two drives on the same cable, though, more chance of good throughput from both on ATA66 - although ATA is not very efficient at sharing channels.
I expect the same general profile on a faster drive - dropping a single ATA133 drive down to ATA66 would probably not really cut into the available performance
so to sum up your post, i'm wasting my time adding the ide/ata133 card to my ATA66 mobo, unless I have 2 hard drives on one channel of this board?
i would think running an ATA133 hard drive on ATA66 would seriously hurt throughput (only using 1/2 of drive's capability)?
oh well. thanks, I'll probably buy another drive and try it.
i would think running an ATA133 hard drive on ATA66 would seriously hurt throughput (only using 1/2 of drive's capability)?
oh well. thanks, I'll probably buy another drive and try it.
An ATA133 controller certainly wouldn't hurt, especially if you need extra IDE ports, but I suspect the loss from running a single ATA133 drive at ATA66 would not be that great.
The "off the platter" sequential transfer rate rarely tends to be no more than half the interface transfer rate - although the higher interface speed may allow more effective use of the drive's cache - especially if an 8Mb cache model.
I would not recommend running 2 IDE drives on the same cable unless unavoidable, as IDE lacks the efficient multi-drive arbitration of SCSI.
If you put the drive on as ATA66, tested with HDTACH, and found the sequential transfer rate exceeded 50Mb/s (allowing for overheads) then I'd say you would do better with an ATA133
Depends on the price - if an ATA133 drive AND controller is an affordable combination, and you have a spare PCI slot for the controller, then go with it.
But if you want a bigger and faster drive (measure your existing one with HDTACH), I wouldn't consider the ATA133 controller a pre-requisite.
PS. ATA Controllers can be a bit iffy with shared PCI IRQ's, so best to use a PCI slot that doesn't end up sharing an IRQ if possible.
http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/gaming/SYS_drive.htm
This kind of backs up the point I was making - with a lower interface speed, you lose out on burst transfer from the drive cache, but generally do not lose on the sustained transfer.
The "off the platter" sequential transfer rate rarely tends to be no more than half the interface transfer rate - although the higher interface speed may allow more effective use of the drive's cache - especially if an 8Mb cache model.
I would not recommend running 2 IDE drives on the same cable unless unavoidable, as IDE lacks the efficient multi-drive arbitration of SCSI.
If you put the drive on as ATA66, tested with HDTACH, and found the sequential transfer rate exceeded 50Mb/s (allowing for overheads) then I'd say you would do better with an ATA133
Depends on the price - if an ATA133 drive AND controller is an affordable combination, and you have a spare PCI slot for the controller, then go with it.
But if you want a bigger and faster drive (measure your existing one with HDTACH), I wouldn't consider the ATA133 controller a pre-requisite.
PS. ATA Controllers can be a bit iffy with shared PCI IRQ's, so best to use a PCI slot that doesn't end up sharing an IRQ if possible.
http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/gaming/SYS_drive.htm
This kind of backs up the point I was making - with a lower interface speed, you lose out on burst transfer from the drive cache, but generally do not lose on the sustained transfer.
dx
1
Not a bad idea ipdave if you have a SCSI card, but a warning. There is a documented problem with this adapter with non Addtronics SCSI cards. The Addtronics ATAPI_SCSI card uses an Achip controller chip and has some compatability probems with non Addtronics cards. The Adaptec 39160 (U160) SCSI controller is but one example of this. There are no issues with the Addtronics U160 controller though.
The problem mainly causes burning proggies to crash during a burn. But extracting audio seems to cause no problems. As I understand it Addtronics only certifies that it will work with Addtronics cards now. It appears that they never tested it with competitors cards during R & D.
Just something to note before you run out an pick up this $100 USD IDE-SCSI adapter.
It does however work great on an Addtronics U160 card
The problem mainly causes burning proggies to crash during a burn. But extracting audio seems to cause no problems. As I understand it Addtronics only certifies that it will work with Addtronics cards now. It appears that they never tested it with competitors cards during R & D.
Just something to note before you run out an pick up this $100 USD IDE-SCSI adapter.
It does however work great on an Addtronics U160 card
dx
1
Hmmm, was not aware there was a unique Addtronics ATAPI_SCSI adapter for Optical drives and a different one for Hard drives.
If you meant will this adapter card have problems with hard drives as well as optical (on non Addtronics SCSI cards)??? Then, yes, I think it will have problems.
According to the rep we spoke to at Addtronics, this adapter was designed for their SCSI cards esp. the U160. Luckily we had 2 of these at work on existing systems so we just swapped them around to make it work. We didn't try them on our hard drives, as we only have SCSI's on most of our systems. We just used these adapter cards to add some IDE Plextor drives to the existing SCSI card..... which as I said worked great with the Addtronics cards.
Sadly Addtronics tech support is not the greatest, but they claimed it was a published problem and they only guarantee it on their cards.
Suppose you could always try it with non Addtronics SCSI cards, but make sure you can return it for a refund if it does not.
If you meant will this adapter card have problems with hard drives as well as optical (on non Addtronics SCSI cards)??? Then, yes, I think it will have problems.
According to the rep we spoke to at Addtronics, this adapter was designed for their SCSI cards esp. the U160. Luckily we had 2 of these at work on existing systems so we just swapped them around to make it work. We didn't try them on our hard drives, as we only have SCSI's on most of our systems. We just used these adapter cards to add some IDE Plextor drives to the existing SCSI card..... which as I said worked great with the Addtronics cards.
Sadly Addtronics tech support is not the greatest, but they claimed it was a published problem and they only guarantee it on their cards.
Suppose you could always try it with non Addtronics SCSI cards, but make sure you can return it for a refund if it does not.