what is the difference bee tween ata133 and sata hardrives?

Question

i need a new hardrive (maxtor) for my acer aspire T120pc i need to know which one is best

Answer 1

Firstly, I apologise if the following is confusing in any way, but I've tried to be thorough.

The first and most obvious difference between ATA133 and SATA hard drives is the way they're physically connected. Nearly all computers will take the older ATA133 style hard drives, but only new ones will have connectors for SATA hard drives.

It looks like the specs for your Acer T120 are as follows:

Athlon XP2600+
Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition
Hard Drive: 40GB
Memory: 256MB DDR
Optical: DVD and CDRW combo drive

I don't know, but I would hazard a guess that this system won't have connectors on the motherboard for a SATA hard drive.

SATA hard drives have a thinner power connector than ATA133. They also use a much smaller data cable than ATA133. In the following picture, the black power connector is the SATA one. The white one is the ATA133 connector:

http://www.bleedinedge.com/guides/psu_select/images/sata_molex.jpg

You probably don't have any of the slim black SATA power connectors in your computer.

The next picture shows you how small the SATA data cable is:

http://www.icculus.org/~luap/serial-ata/thumbs/sata-data-connector.jpg

This is what the ATA133 data cable looks like (ribbon cable):

http://pcsale.co.nz/catalog/images/products/dat_10282.jpg

It's much larger.

That's the physical differences summed up. I would check what kind of hard drive you currently have, and put another similar (either ATA133 or SATA) in there.

If you have the choice between the two, SATA will be not only faster by a small margin, but also more future proof.

I hope that helps answer your question. For more information on ATA and SATA, you can see the source articles below.

If you're after opinions as to which drive to get, I think it's unlikely to make a huge difference between manufacturers in terms of reliability. These days manufacturing standards are very high. Five or ten years ago, you might have heard of a batch of Samsung's going wrong or Maxtors losing all your data, but I don't think it's something to worry about now.

It's worth noting that for pure speed, only Western Digital make SATA hard drives that spin faster than anyone else's - 10,000rpm. Those are their Raptor models.

It's also worth noting that for quietness, Samsung's SpinPoint hard drives can barely be heard. I have one and it's silent.

The best performing drives at the moment are of course the most expensive (the 750GB Seagates) simply because of their large capacity. They've crammed more data more densely onto the drive, which means the read head doesn't have to move as far to reach data on the drive, and it's noticeably quicker.

Answer 2

I've just downloaded the manual for your particular PC, and found it next to useless. What I was looking for was to see whether it had either a photograph or diagram of the layout of the motherboard. Sadly, it doesn't contain one. Having said that, the date on the manual states December 2003. I would hazard a guess that your computer doesn't have SATA ports on the motherboard. That, therefore, means that you'll have to go the IDE/ATA route.

As others have already pointed out, there's quite a difference between the data connection for IDE/ATA and SATA. The data cable for IDE/ATA is approximately 2 inches wide, whereas that of the SATA is just over half an inch wide. You'll easily be able to see the difference.

Answer 3

Speed is the main thing, SATA hard drives operate at much faster speeds plus use less wiring, which is good for almost every system out there. That is data transfer speeds, not hard drive spinning speeds.

I would go with a Western Digital or Seagate. I don't trust any Maxtors. They break down too easy for my liking.
Chad

Answer 4

Unless your computer supports Serial ATA hard drives, you won't be able to use one in the machine. A Serial ATA drive is completely different from an ATA133 drive - they're not in any way interchangeable. It's like the difference between SCSI hard drives and IDE hard drives.

If your machine supports both, go with the Serial ATA - it's faster.

Answer 5

yeah check if its got a SATA (Serial ATA) controller if so then get one of those. If it just has regular IDE controller, you'll need ATA (also known as PATA for Parallel ATA) drive