Quote:
Originally posted by iamjero
What is the difference between hard drives with ATA-100 and ATA-133 interfaces?
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The speed of the data transfer between the hardrive and the motherboard. 133 is standard nowdays. It's the same cable, an ata cable, and ata133 is backwards compatable. It's just a higher throughput of data per second. hardly any user ever puts ata133 to it's limit.
That said you can use ata100 just fine for a lower price and it will work just as well. Again i'm going to stress that either one will work using the same cable.
However, the industry is moving towards SATA, which is the new standard agreed upon that has just started to appear in use. As the goal is to phase out ATA, you'll want a board that has both ATA and SATA for maximum forward compatability. Also, the cost of SATA drives is still expensive but coming down rapidly. I'd say get a cheap ATA drive for now combined with a board that has both plugs, and move up to an SATA 200gb drive in 12 months when they reach the 125.00 dollar price point.