What HDD do I need?

[r2d2]

I am planning to upgrade my X20 and X21 to a 30 or 40GB. Before, getting a hard drive is so simple... i just need an ATA-6 IDE 2.5". Now it seems to be complicated . I now see ATA-7 which as per some Google hits say is SATA but some hits say it is NOT SATA but the last and latest update of PATA (which i believe is the ATA-6 and older ).

Can anyone here kindly explain this? Please...


P.S.
Dear Admins... this may not be the appropriate forum but placed it here because this is related to my X2s.

[weepy]

According to ThinkWiki: ICH3-M is present on X2x, which supports Ultra ATA 100 (ATA-6). No SATA for X2x. ATA standard is backward compatible. ATA-7 = Ultra ATA/133

Maybe they mean that SATA 1.0 is identical to ATA-7 in capabilities, but in different physical layer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT_Attachm ... d_features

[r2d2]

According to ThinkWiki: ICH3-M is present on X2x, which supports Ultra ATA 100 (ATA-6). No SATA for X2x. ATA standard is backward compatible. ATA-7 = Ultra ATA/133

Yup, there is no SATA for X2x but when you say ATA is backward compatible, does that mean ATA-7 can work with my X20/X21?

Thank you for the link by the way...

[weepy]

It will.. if it is Parallel ATA. I have never seen a Serial ATA drive advertised as ATA-7..

[aaa]

Yes, anything that is Parallel ATA and not Serial ATA will work. Including ATA-7.

It always helps to look up the model on the drive manufacturer's website to make sure.

[WarMachine]

Hello,

I own an X20.

I replaced the original 20 GB HDD by a 40 GB one. So, the capacity is not a problem. First point !

Second point :

Here's a table that will help you to understand the ATA/UDMA thing :

http://xs125.xs.to/xs125/08104/ata906.png

The table is in french, so :

- Nom = Name
- Norme ANSI = ANSI Standard
- Synonyme = Synonymous
- Mode (PIO/DMA) = The same thing
- Débit (Mo/s) = Transfer rate (MB/s)
- Commentaires = Comments

So, ATA-7 is not S-ATA.

W.

[qviri]

- Débit (Mo/s) = Transfer rate (Mo/s) // Mo is the eighth of MB

To the best of my knowledge, Mo means megaoctets which is the same thing as the English megabytes (MB). A megabyte has eight megabits (Mb).

Transfer rate of ATA-7 is 133 megabytes per second (MB/s or Mo/s), which is 1064 megabits per second (Mb/s).

[WarMachine]

You're right !


Edited.



W.