WD ATA133 availability

[mwgorecki]

Does anyone have news on a release date from Western Digital on ATA133 drives?


sz

 

[JPWRana]

i guess not.

The greatest risk of all is not taking one!

 

[dhlucke]

ATA133 is a Maxtor invention that basically nets no performance increase. It just allows for larger hard drives.

Western Digital, probably to avoid paying royalties, is releasing ATA100 drives that are 200GB. They've come up with their own way to release large drives without having to move onto ATA133.

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[mwgorecki]

dhlucke, I am not sure I agree with that. ATA133 will provide better performance under the right circumstances - just like ATA100 is faster than UltraDMA/33. The ATA number is a measure of maximum and sustainable transfer rates, so 133 is > 33. Larger hard drives are made possible by quantum physics :tongue:

http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/02q3/020806/ide-02.html



sz

 

[khha4113]

The ATA number is a measure of maximum and <font color=red>sustainable</font color=red> (?) transfer rates, so 133 is > 33.

More like <b><font color=red>burst</b></font color=red> than sustainable.

Good or Bad have no meaning at all, depends on what your point of view is.

 

[mwgorecki]

Several bursts approaches sustained. The difference would not be huge, but it would still exist. Right?!


sz

 

[dhlucke]

Check the benchmarks. Not even ATA100 reaches a 100MB/sec burst rate. ATA133 doesn't reach 133MB/sec.

<font color=red>I'd like to dedicate this post to all my friends, family, and fans. Without them this post would never have been possible. Thank you!</font color=red>

 

[khha4113]

Several bursts approaches sustained. The difference would not be huge, but it would still exist. Right?!

No. Because it should have been called <b>sustained rate</b> instead of <b>burst</b>! Right?

Good or Bad have no meaning at all, depends on what your point of view is.

 

[lhgpoobaa]

burst sucks.
how long does it take to drain the cache of data? a fraction of a second at the most.

storagereview did a comparison of a maxtor ata133 drive on a ata card at both 100 and 133 speeds, and found there was such a negligible difference it really didnt matter.

the main advantages of ata133 still are:
a. able to natively handle drives over 137gb in size without any mucking around
and
b. higher bandwidth for multiple drives or drives in RAID.
of limited use really... soon to to superseeded by serial ata


<b><font color=orange>My <font color=green>life <font color=red>has <font color=blue>been <font color=black>so <font color=purple>much <font color=yellow>more <font color=orange>colourful <font color=green>since <font color=blue>the <font color=red>advent <font color=black>of <font color=purple>Super <font color=red>VGA! :lol:

 

[HammerBot]

They've come up with their own way to release large drives without having to move onto ATA133.

Everybody seems to think that UDMA133 is required to use drives larger than 128GB (the 28bit LBA addressing limit). This is not true. The ATA/ATAPI-6 rev. 0b (2nd october 2000) standard solves this by including 48 bit LBA addressing commands. The current state of the ATA/ATAPI-6 standard (rev 3b) defines up to UDMA mode 5 which has a minimum cycle time 38 ns (giving a maximum burst transfer rate of approx 100 MB/s)

The WD2000 (200 GB drive) does not use UDMA133 and yet it is larger than 128 GB

 

[mwgorecki]

I like the RAID benefit as I intend to use that. HOWEVER, the Asus A7V8X board I am looking at uses the serial ATA also....


sz

 

[mwgorecki]

From THG:
Although Serial ATA will not be replacing traditional ATA any time soon, the days of ribbon cables are definitely numbered. Among the advantages of Serial ATA, there's not only the higher data rate (up to 150 MB/s), but the thinner cable and the problem-free connector are easier to handle.


sz

 

[JPWRana]

so someone give me a GOOD reason on why we shouldn't move up to SATA? The advantages appear to be better than those of ATA.... right?

The greatest risk of all is not taking one!

 

[dhlucke]

The thin cables alone make the move worth it.

<font color=red>I'd like to dedicate this post to all my friends, family, and fans. Without them this post would never have been possible. Thank you!</font color=red>

 

[mwgorecki]

Yes, it is better in every way over ATA. I believe that is why only Maxtor has an ATA133 drive - the other manufacturers are starting to support serial ATA. The Asus A7V8X has SATA, and I intend to use it when I upgrade in a few months.


sz