Harddisk

dork3d SG

What’s the difference between Parallel ATA 133 and Serial ATA 133 harddisk?

ndmmxiaomayi SG

PATA is IDE, SATA is SATA.

The difference between them is minor or major, depending on how you see it.

For PATA hard disks, you will need to set the jumpers accordingly if you are using more than 2. For SATA, that isn't an issue.

Also, there's a speed difference. SATA is faster than PATA...

PATA disks also have more pins, more specifically, 40 pins, in 2 rows, 20 pins each.

dork3d SG

Mayi, so if me were to get an external casing for a 120Gb PATA harddisk, me just lokk for those normal IDE type instead of those for SATA and PATA types?

Farmerseed SG

Usually PATA aligns with ATA100 speed. Parallel ATA 133 are classified under Ultra ATA. Read more about then below:-

http://www.ntcompatible.com/Hard_Drive_ATA100_vs._ATA133_s10255.html

There is no serial ATA 133. Instead SATA 150 (or so called SATA, i.e SATAI) The lastest SATAII can also be addressed as SATA300 if you will. Like Mayi wrote besides the connector the data transfer speeed is the other main difference.

Farmerseed SG

You can mod an external hard disk with IDE drives (i.e PATA drives) or SATA drives. However when you can the mod case, look out for the interface card description. Most in retails now are for IDE drives, however there are some for SATA drives modding and they usually costs more over the IDE compatitor.

There are also some that can use both SATA and ATA drives:-
http://www.pricegrabber.com/p__Sabrent_SATA_IDE_3_5_USB_2_0_External_Hard_Drive_Enclosure_for_SATA_or_IDE_Hard_Drives,__19271010/