Serial ATA 150 downward compatibility with 100

[Guest calnaction]

Hi everyone,My hard drive (Seagate Barracuda IV 80gb 7200rpm ATA/100) is going kaput as we speak and will not load windows currently. So, I decided that I am finished with that drive and I'm in the market for a new one. I noticed that those SATA 10,000rpm hard drives are not TOO expensive and from what I read, their load performance is excellent compared to a 7200rpm. My question is can my system support it? My current IDE is, like I said, an Ultra ATA 100 where as the 10K drives are Serial ATA 150. I've seen that 133 is backwards compatible, but could anyone tell me if the 150 is too? I don't know what my motherboard is (don't know where too look) but my system is a Dell Dimension 4500 2ghz. Thanks for any feedback! Also, don't mind throwing any opinions in favor of a 7200rpm because I haven't thrown out that idea yet (I would really like more space!).-Cal

[Guest SoarPics]

I bought a WD 37Gg Raptor late last year, and liked it so much that I recently replaced it with the 74Gb. They are excellant drives. Your simming won't be any better with them, but app load times will drop by 25-30%. Also, they come with a 5 year manufacturers warranty.SATA drives cannot be plugged into IDE ports no matter what the IDE speed the motherboard offers.I don't know if your motherboard is SATA capable (don't know anything about Dell's) but from the info you gave my guess is that it's not. If not then you would have to purchase and install a PCI to SATA Controller card in an empty PCI slot and then plug the SATA drive into it.http://www.newegg.com/app/SearchProductRes...ubmit=Go&DEPA=0Good luck,Greg

[Guest calnaction]

Thanks for the info Greg! I decided, to be most cost effective, I would try to RAID a 37gb 10000rpm to an 80gb 7200rpm as someone suggested on a hardware forum I read. Not quite sure how that would work, but I've found the 37gb drive for $94 and an 80gb drive for $71, plus, if I need a pci card like you suggested, another $20. That comes out to about $185 which is about what I would have spent for a 74 gb 10000rpm. I find that the advantage here is more space, and while load times are slower on the larger drive, I would probably place windows and FS9 on the 37gb drive since that's what I mainly use. Now I have no idea what cables these things need and I'm not sure if I already have them, so I have to check that too. Thanks again! Any more help would be nice!-Cal

[Guest kilo_sierra17]

I am not a professional when it comes to RAID but from how I understand it, the hard drives have to be the same, or at least the same speed. I don't know if you can do what your suggesting, and they both have to be SATA to RAID them I believe.

[Guest calnaction]

Yeah, so in a bit of a twist, I decided to abandon the whole RAID thing for right now, as well as a SATA drive in favor of a simple UATA 160gb. The first limiting condition was the fact taht I have no room for a PCI card (the fan on my vid card blocks my one open port). I also felt that spending $100 for 160gb, albeit slower than my other options, was simple to install and very cheap. This is all considering my computer is 2 years old and I'll probably replace it in the next 2 years or so (maybe less!) so it's just not worth investing so much for such a short lived improvement. Thanks anyway for your feedback! I did find a Maxtor 160 gb drive, UATA 133, 8 mb cache, 7200 rpm, so definitely an upgrade from my previous drive, with only 80gb, UATA 100, 2 mb cache. Thanks again!-Cal

[Guest kilo_sierra17]

Good choice, I got a Maxtor as well, 8MB Cache, 7200RPM, ATA 133, 80GB, very nice drive, fast and quiet.