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Euphrates · Sep 17, 2001, 04:01 PM

I have a quicksilver, and I was wondering what acronyms (ATA, IDE, WYSIWYG

) I would look for when I buy an internal drive just like the 60 gig one I got in my comp. Thanks for the help, guys!

OldManMac · Sep 17, 2001, 10:45 PM

ATA and IDE (now EIDE, for Enhanced Integrated Drive Electronics) are terms that are on all drives, except SCSI. ATA, if my memory serves me correctly, refers to the connection specification (I could be wrong on this, but it really isn't important when you're buying a drive because they're all ATA/EIDE). Most drives sold now use either an ATA 66Mhz or ATA 100Mhz bus, with the new ATA 133Mhz bus drives just hitting the market. Any of these bus speeds will work in your Quicksilver. The drives our two Apple Specialist stores have had the best luck with are IBM and Maxtor. My G4/400 from last November came with a Maxtor 10Gb 5400rpm, to which I quickly added a Maxtor 40Gb 7200rpm, setting the new faster drive as the master, and the slower drive as the slave. I run OS X on the slower drive, because I don't use it as much, and 9.2.1 on the 7200rpm, as that's my working drive.

ae77 · Sep 18, 2001, 01:14 AM

Yes, what KarlG said. Most ATA/IDE drives should work.
I think Quicksilver uses ATA/66 bus, so you can use the 100, 133 drives, but it will only run at 66.
Go with IBM or Maxtor, I've heard many very good props about them.

good luck!

[ 09-18-2001: Message edited by: ae77 ]

Cipher13 · Sep 18, 2001, 05:24 AM

Originally posted by ae77:
<STRONG>Yes, what KarlG said. Most ATA/IDE drives should work.
I think Quicksilver uses ATA/66 bus, so you can use the 100, 133 drives, but it will only run at 66.
Go with IBM or Maxtor, I've heard many very good props about them.

good luck!

[ 09-18-2001: Message edited by: ae77 ]</STRONG>

Just to clear up any confusion that may ensue, you can not only use 100 and 133 drives on a 66 bus, but also ATA/33 and ATA/4 and any IDE or EIDE or ATAPI drives...

It all works.

IBM are the best, but you do pay for the quality.

Yeah, QS is ATA/66.

Euphrates · Sep 18, 2001, 05:25 PM

Ok thanks everyone. Now, just one more question

, since I can connect all those different names for drives together, what specs would I want to look for in my drive, other than rpm and size. Should I not buy Ata/133 because my computer wouldn't care that it was better than an Ata/66? Thanks again everyone!

nana2 · Sep 18, 2001, 08:08 PM

ATA66/100/133 means nothing to the real performance of a hard drive, because no current IDE hard drive exceeds even 45MB/sec sustained. It's just a marketing gimmick. Check out www.storagereview.com for all your storage review needs.

Sep 19, 2001, 12:08 PM

Originally posted by nana2:
<STRONG>ATA66/100/133 means nothing to the real performance of a hard drive, because no current IDE hard drive exceeds even 45MB/sec sustained. It's just a marketing gimmick. Check out www.storagereview.com for all your storage review needs.</STRONG>

If you're doing digital video work (or possibly audio work), then I highly recommend a minimum of 7200 RPM hard drives. If not, you pay a substantial premium for performance that you probably won't notice. One exception: I recently purchased a 7200 RPM 100GB hard drive for $200 at Fry's (it recently opened in Austin). Best deal going.

allen

Euphrates · Sep 19, 2001, 07:35 PM

Ok thanks everyone, I think I know what to look for!