Hello

I am confused about the hd speed. I have encountered a hard disk which has ata100 with 7200 rpm. What is the difference between ata133 with 7200 rpm and ata100 with 7200 rpm? Which is faster and can I mix these two in the same channel without conflict? Thanks

I would not recommend placing them on the same channel, but physically it should not do any harm, other than potentially slowing the faster drive. 7200rpm is how fast the disc spins, this is the standard over the old standard of 5400rpm. the 100 and 133 related to the bus speed of the drive, eg, how much data they can transfer in a single buffer request, thus 133 is faster, 33% faster to be exact. These numbers are similar to the way RAM works, the have elevated from 100, 133, 233, 333, 433, etc, the more data that can be read or written in a single pass, the faster the entire file can be dealt with.

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</Dream In Code>
-William. § (marvin_gohan)

Thanks, William!

I was wondering why like my maxtor, it is ata133 but it runs only at 5400rpm and my samsung it runs at 7200 and also ata133. I asked this inquiry coz I would like to upgrade my presario 7400 (built with only ata66) by adding add-on card. With ata133 pci controller card, will my pc also run at ata133 and 7200 rpm or not? Thanks.. Please help me.

each drive will run at the it's highest spped possible, as long as the motherboard supports it. Currently your computer will run all drives at ata66. The effect is that when transferring certain types of data, transferring at 133, a 5400rpm drive can lag, thus the faster spinning drive of 7200rpm.

As for the upgrade theoretically it could speed up your device, but data still can only move as fast on the motherboard as there are physical wires, which in your case is 66, not 133. To get proper performance from your computer a new motherboard sounds like the real upgrade. What kind of processor do you have?

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</Dream In Code>
-William. § (marvin_gohan)

I got it now. The processor is AMD K6-2 550mhz with 256MB memory stick pc100. One more thing, which is better to use in the system, ata133 (5400rpm) or ata100 (7200rpm)?

Thanks, William!