"Elle" wrote in message
news

I think gateway 900 motherboard supoort only IDE, not
serial ATA. So
you can only choose IDE hard drive

I thought IDE and ATA were just different names for the same
thing.


They are, he was referring to *serial* ATA, or 'SATA', a relatively new
technology. ATA is the old style IDE connector with the flat ribbon cable
the vast majority of PCs still use, which, since serial ATA came out, has
increasingly become referred to as PATA or parallel ATA. Confusing, isn't
it! SATA is potentially faster than standard ATA, uses much smaller
connectors and thinner, easier to route cables. It cannot be daisy chained
like parallel ATA, each drive requires its own socket on the motherboard or
serial ATA card.

You can add a cheap serial ATA card to a PCI slot on your system if you
wantg to use a serial ATA drive, but I wouldn't bother- you probably
wouldn't notice any performance gain in an older PC.

Regardless, from Gateway's site, the specs on the old hard
drive say it is a Seagate with an Ultra ATA/100 interface.
These specs say nothing about a hard drive cache.


ATA100 is fine, your hard drive controller is probably only ATA66 or ATA100
anyway. ATA133 is the common speed now, and while a AT133 drive will work
fine in your system, you wouldn't get the extra benefit anyway. Don't worry
about the size of the cache. Most people using their PCs for everyday tasks
would never know the difference anyway. Put it this way- there's no way the
new hard drive will be any slower than what you had!

Dave