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ATA5 or ATA6

Forum Mobile Computing : General Mobile Computing - ATA5 or ATA6

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crowbraid   06-29-2003 at 04:44:01 PM

Hi. I posted this question in the hard drive forum, but only got one useful answer before the thread went off topic. I thought I'd post it again here to see if I could get the real answer to my question. Older post follows:

Hi. I was reading about the new 7200rpm Hitachi hard drive for laptops. I was comparing the specs to the 4200rpm hard drive that is in my Alienware laptop, and they both have the same physical size and the same power requirements. However, the older one is ATA5 and the newer one is ATA6. Does that matter as far as compatibility goes? I'm just looking to be able to take advantage of the 7200rpm speed. Thanks for any and all replies.

-crowbraid-

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RaPTuRe   06-29-2003 at 05:25:23 PM
- 0 +

Read up on your Alienware's specs. If it can handle ATA100, it should have no problem with the 7200rpm Drive. I know a lot of the new Alienwares are being shipped with the 5400rpm HDD which may (or may not) be ATA6 (You could possibly look that up).

In my opinion, the 7200rpm drives will work with your notebook. I am just waiting for the fast drives to be available in South Africa, so that I can upgrade my 5400.

Sure thing,

RaPTuRe

Who's General Failure and why's he reading my disk?

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crowbraid   06-29-2003 at 05:42:10 PM
- 0 +

Hey, thanks for the info, RaPTuRe. I'll fish out the Alienware manual after a bit and see if I can puzzle out if it can handle ATA100 or not. It's one year old, if that matters. I've asked Alienware tech support a couple of times, but no one there seems to know (or if they do, they sure as hell ain't admitting it).

-crowbraid-

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dwellman   06-30-2003 at 04:26:36 PM
- 0 +

ATA (EIDE) protocols are backward compatible.

There isn't much noticable difference between ATA-5 and ATA-6, anyway (no single drive transfers data at or beyond 75 MB/s). Besides 7200 RPM is faster than 5400 RPM or 4200 RPM anyway.

A 9.5mm 7200 RPM drive? I hadn't heard!

Dave

Intel giveth and Microsoft taketh away.

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