ATA-6, Ultra ATA/100 - What's the difference?

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Level 1

4 points

ATA-6, Ultra ATA/100 - What's the difference?

I want to upgrade the hard drive in my Alu Powerbook G4 to a larger drive. In looking for alternatives, it seems that my choices are those that are designated as Ultra ATA/100 or those as ATA-6. For instance, the Seagate Momentus 5400.2 comes in both versions. Is one better/more compatible with a Alu PBG4 1.67Ghz model? Also, any thoughts on brand of drive welcome.

PBG4 Alu 1.67Ghz, Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Posted on Nov 30, 2006 4:30 PM

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Answer 1

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BGreg

Level 6

17,552 points

Nov 30, 2006 6:07 PM in response to Tim Roy

Welcome to the Apple discussions.

Ultra ATA/100 and ATA-6 are the same standard. In looking at the Seagate site, they only list Ultra ATA/100 as the parallel interface (versus the different Serial ATA or SATA interface which won't work in a PPC PowerBook).

Seagate now warranties their drives for 5 years versus 3 years for most other vendors. There might be one or two with less than a 3 year warranty, and that's just not competitive.

You'll need to make a choice between speed and size. 7200 RPM drives carry a price premium over equivalent 5400RPM drives and top out around 100GB in size. 5400 RPM drives go up to 160GB.

If you look at OWC at http://www.macsales.com at their notebook hard drive page, the left side of the page lists drives which will work. The right side are SATA drives, which won't work.

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Answer 2

Tim Roy Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 16, 2006 9:32 AM in response to BGreg

Thanks for the clarification, BGreg.
I recently bought a new Seagate 120GB drive from NewEgg.com for a little over $100 and had my local Apple authorized Mac repair center do the install since it's still in AppleCare warranty. Took the original 80GB drive and installed it in a nice compact external case by MacAlly.

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