New Spec?!?

[Guest]

I have seen specs for ATA/133 controllers. I have not seen anything about mainboards incorperating these new widgets. Nor, have I seen drives (save maybe Maxtor, can't remember) for this spec. Does anyone have a tentative date for these?

 

[FatBurger]

Maxtor has an ATA/133 drive out, there are Maxtor ATA/133 controller cards out, and two boards that I know of that will incorporate this are the XP333 from Iwill, and the KR7a-<font color=red>RAID</font color=red> from Abit. Only the RAID version has ATA/133, remember that.

However, we still are not really using all that ATA/100 can give us, so at the moment, it is nothing more than bragging rights.

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[Arrow]

It's still relatively new, but they're slowly being pushed into the market.

Rob
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[Guest]

I've been informed that the main benefit of the ATA/133-protocol is support for larger drives and not bandwidth, which as correctly stated above is not of any real use with todays harddrives - ATA/66 will suffice for most. But my question regards RAID configuration. Can anyone tell me if this doesn't make a different picture - more drives requires more bandwith, right? And can ATA/33-100 harddrives be used for this purpose - that is: Can two stripped ATA/66-drives (theoretically) utilize the full bandwith of an ATA/133-controller or does the drives have to comply width the same standard as the controller to make full advantage of the bandwith? Is this a funny question?

 

[Crashman]

You should be able to THEORETICALLY dump all the stored information from the cache of BOTH UDMA66 drives at once, giving you a burst of 133MB/s.

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

 

[FatBurger]

The 133 is per channel, not per controller. So a PCI controller could have more than 133MB/s, if the PCI bus didn't top out at 133MB/s.

Larger hard drives? I don't think the interface has anything to do with hard drive size, but I could be wrong.

And Crash is right, it'd help with cached info. Hadn't thought of that.

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[Guest]

In this review of the Promise Ultra 133 TX2: http://www.littlewhitedog.com/reviews_hardware_00034.asp it is stated that ATA133 brings along "instant recognition of single drive capacities that exceed 137GB, without manufacturer software drivers".

But besides, what you are saying is that (still theoretical) only in an ATA133 controller setup concisting of one single harddrive would the drive have to be an ATA133 drive to be able to reach the magic peak of 133MB/s (being the top limit)? That is: RAID with two drives could make do with ATA66-drives? Will a RAID 0 configuration not mean (equally) dividing the bandwidth in this manner? That is: The 66MB/s per drive not being surpassed in any instance, which again would suggest using at least ATA100 drives? I'm especially curious on this subject as I'm plotting to buy the Abit KR7A-RAID motherboard, and thus wondering if I was missing out on anything by freely choosing amongst the current ATA100-models for my planned two drives array instead of going for the only ATA133-model on the market right now (Maxtor).

 

[FatBurger]

Ouch...my head hurts. Sorry, I missed that, but here goes.

No IDE drive currently can sustain 133MB/s, 100 MB/s, or even 66MB/s (unless there's a dark horse out there). Buy good drives, set them up in a RAID, be happy. I wouldn't get too caught up in the details.

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[Guest]

Yes, Burger, I guess that is the answer to my question. Thanks. (Now, let's see if I get to taste the happiness of RAID