[Naplander]

I have a gigabit ethernet g4 400 machine. Apple says I need to get an ATA interface on the HD (or scusi, but I don't have a card). I will be using the drive for audio so it needs to be zippy.

Will an ATA100 drive work, or does it have to be ATA66?

I am assuming it's an IDE ATA drive????

Sorry about this....I am a bit confused by all the terminology and don't want to get a drive that doesn't work!!

Thanks

[Paul S]

IDE and ATA are the same thing, ATA is just the newer versions of IDE interfaces. Macs top out with ATA66 connections, but PCs have 100 and most drives are now made for 100. It doesn't matter. The fastest ATA drives will sustain around 35MB/s, which is well within the 66MB/s limit of ATA66. ATA100 is just one of those things companies compete on but never really benefits the consumer. ATA100 drives will just slow down to 66 speeds with no problem.

ATA will be more than fast enough to do audio work. I'm running an ATA100 drive on the ATA33 bus in my B&W G3 and do hours of digital video without skipping a beat.

I'd recommend the IBM Deskstar series of drives. High quality and very fast.

[Naplander]

Thanks Paul S,

I have been looking at the IBM drives, and I think they do offer the best performance/quality etc. I'll probably go for one of those.

Thanks for clearing up the ATA /IDE question for me..

Anyone know what UDMA stands for?

Obviously I need to know that the drive I buy will work with my mac!


Naplander

[ 06-25-2001: Message edited by: Naplander ]

[-Q-]

According to Webopedia, UDMA is:

A protocol developed by Quantum Corporation and Intel that supports burst mode data transfer rates of 33.3 MBps. This is twice as fast as the previous disk drive standard for PCs, and is necessary to take advantage of new, faster Ultra ATA disk drives.

The official name for the protocol is Ultra DMA/33. It's also called UDMA, UDMA/33 and DMA mode 33.

I'm unaware if this works in Macs.

As for a good drive, I've been using a Maxtor 30 GB IDE/ATA drive in my G3 for about 2 months now and the speed has been great.I've used it to transfer digital video from my Sony camera to my HDD and I've not experience any lost frames or audio yet. And it was a great price at US$99.

Q

[simonjames]

Hi,

I bought the latest IBM Deskstar 40Gb about 4 months ago - it works superbly and quietly - hasn't skipped a beat.


cheers


Simon