K7v and Hard Drive

[Thoth]

Have an old k7v-based 900mhz machine that needs a hard drive upgrade. What's the fastest speed hard drive it can support? It's been running a Western Digital that apparently is a ATA/100 drive fine.

 

[o1die]

An old anandtech review used an ata 66 hardrive, so a new hardrive may not improve performance. I would run disk clean and defrag, and see if you notice any improvement in performance before getting a new drive.

 

[Thoth]

My plan is to build a new computer using a barebones system then migrate the drive to it so that I can keep my directory structure intact. It'll be in the current machine for about a month.

 

[o1die]

Your new board may support sata drives. They start at about $68 for 80 gig (newegg.com). You won't notice much performance difference except with large files, such as a new operating system installation. The top of the line is the 74 gig western digital raptors for people with money to burn. A pair of those in raid 0 will offer the best performance. If you must use it now in your old board, check Fry's electronics. My local Fry's had a seagate 80 gig ide 100 for only $30 after rebate.

 

[blah]

there is no such thing as "speed limit" for mobo, as long as it is supplied with the according controller, but even with ATA-33 connection HD is going to run close to it's limits, and it is very hard (if at all) to notice any difference between 33 and 100 anyway.

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