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"UDMA or ATA?"

My Motherbaord died a while back so I thought this would be as good a chance as any to get a refund and buy a diffeent one..with DDR.
I see most motherbaords support UDMA hard drives but the ones I have are ATA, I thought ATA were better because they're faster (150 now) whereas UDMA are slower..I think.
I know ATA is the 'old' style connection (39/40 pin) but old isn't always bad.
Can someone tell me is UDMAs better please :)

Specifications:
* Maxtor Brand

* 40 GB Capacity

* 7200 RPM Rotational Speed

* Number of heads/platter: 2/1

* Internal Package

* 3.5 Inch Form Factor

* 2048k Cache Size

* 8.5ms access time

* 133 MB/sec Transfer Rate

...apparently :)

AMD_MAN wrote:
> I've just read your post fog and it's not 80 pin it's only 40 pin for
> the ata66/100/133 but there are 80 wires as 40 of them are earth
> wires.
>
> c.b.

ooooohhhh, ok, that clears it all up for me :) ta very much.
8mb cache? doh, mine has 2 :D good enough for me.

AMD_MAN wrote:
> I've heard some good things about those drives, although i would like
> to have one on the bench and test it.
>
> c.b.


I just want one in my computer, thanks!

I've just read your post fog and it's not 80 pin it's only 40 pin for the ata66/100/133 but there are 80 wires as 40 of them are earth wires.

c.b.

I've heard some good things about those drives, although i would like to have one on the bench and test it.

c.b.

Maxtor DiamondMax 9s with an 8mb cache and fluid bearings are what everyone wants at the moment.

You are right about the differant pin types on the differant speed hard drive's, but as far as i get the gist of it UDMA and ATA are the same thing, could be wrong though, Oh and i have on reliable source that the Western digital Speacial edition hard drives with the 8mb cache are gonna be stocked by sr soon.

c.b.

I thought UDMA drives were 80 pin, ATA were 39 and IDE/EIDE/UIDE with 40 pin :/

Thankyou very much for your words though, you've reasurred me :)

thats because all drives have differant specs, like rpm's (5400 and 7200) and cache buffers are bigger, my western digital special editon 100gb 8mb cache 7200 rmp ata100 drive kick the a** of my old ata133 maxtor drive and actually performs better than some scsi drive setup's,this has a lot to do with the 8mb cache buffer on the drive though and the low seek time, a good hard drive setup can make one hell of a differance to you system performance.

c.b.

Yeah, but theoretically, no drive will ever perform to full spec, and some ATA100 drives are actually faster than some ATA133 drives.

Look on good websites like www.anandtech.com for benchmarked drives and find out heir practical transfer rates if you want to find a fast drive.