[bsaxton]

Hello,

I have a LaCie 40gig external drive I bought several years ago. I want to swap the drive in the enclosure with a 250gig drive - I figure the enclosure can handle IDE drives. However, what I have never understood is how the different drive standards work. So... is an internal SATA drive backward compatible with an IDE/ATA/whatever drive? Or, can I buy an SATA drive and expect it to work in this enclosure?

Thanks much,

BRS

[discotronic]

IDE and SATA are 2 different connections. SATA is not backwards compatible. Your enclosure will not work with a SATA drive unless it has both controllers built in which is highly unlikely.

[Tee]

Yeah, SATA means Serial ATA and is different from 'regular' ATA/IDE
IDE/EIDE/ATA is sometimes called Parallel or PATA.

One other thing to consider is whether or not a 250gb drive will function properly in your older enclosure. If the firewire bridge chip is several years old it may not recognize drives larger than 128gb (actually it will recognize the drive, but only as 128gb).

Check with Lacie support to see if your model number/serial no. has a chip that will recognize drives larger then 128gb.

[mountainash]

You can get an adaptor to plug a Parallel ATA hard drive into a SATA cable, but it probably wouldn't fit inside an external case. AFAIK, the opposite kind of adaptor doesn't exist. I wouldn't be surprised if it did. SATA and PATA/IDE/ATA are quite different technologies, so the adaptors are a bit exensive.

Get a P-ATA drive (or IDE/EIDE/ATA). There is no advantage in getting a SATA drive. The speed advantage is negated by Firewire's slower bus, and IDE/PATA/ATA drives are cheaper.

In the not too distant future external SATA enclosures which plug straight into a SATA port on your computer will be affordable. For the moment they are not worth the price.

For more info on SATA and ATA try:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sata
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance...ogy_Attachment