ATA and Ultra ATA

Is there aa difference between the ATA hardrive in the iBook and the Ultra ATA in the PowerBooks? I want to buy a new harddrive, but everywhere I go I only find ATA drives. What is the difference if any?

Don't worry about the terms. You just need any 2.5" ATA drive but not a Serial ATA (SATA) drive (these are for the very latest laptops). A rough history goes something like this:
ATA = 8Mbps?
ATA2 = 16.6Mbps
Ultra ATA/ATA33/Ultra DMA = 33.3Mbps
ATA66/UltraDMA 66 = 66Mbps
ATA100 = 100Mbps
ATA133 = 133Mbps
SATA = 150Mbps
SATA2 =300Mbps
If I've made a mistake I'd be grateful if one corrects me!
If you buy a modern ATA133 device it will be compatible any ATA device (not SATA). It will slow automatically. I think the original iBooks were ATA33 and the Ti Powerbooks ATA100, but I can't find much info about this from Apple.
HTH
mrtotes

Similar Messages

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    Hello,
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    If you are considering an external drive, then you have a problem. The most important thing there is that you get a drive with firewire interface because I think they are the fastest, but USB is an ok choice. If there is an external firewire drive that also uses a serial ATA drive inside of it, then that would be an excellent choice for speed. USB or Firewire are standards for connecting a peripherial to you Mac. An external drive will probably have a very common, read Mactor, WD, Seagate, ATA drive in it. The external drive case has a interface inside of it which allows USB or Firewire to speak with the ATA drive, any flavor. Some people just purchase a powered external 3 1/2 case and install the hd they like the best, that is the nice thing about standards.
    I think serial ATA will pretty much spell the end of all of the older ATA drives. The serial drives are actually very competitive in price now and faster.
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    iMac G5 17" ALS with 1 Gigglebyte ram Mac OS X (10.4.4) Also a homebuilt Sempron, a Compaq, and a Dell laptop...oh my!
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    <hr width="200">
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    xlr8yourmac
    Service Manuals
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  • Intel 82801EB Serial Ultra ATA Storage controller?

    Reworded
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    Thanks for that
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  • Serial ATA to IDE Ultra ATA-100/133 Mini Converter Board~ Is it worth it???

    I was considering installing a Serial ATA to IDE Ultra ATA-100/133 Mini Converter Board to run my ultra ATA devices.
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    DD

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  • IDE...ATA...Serial ATA...Ultra ATA.....Mega ATA .... YIKES!!

    IDE...ATA... Serial ATA... Ultra ATA..... Mega ATA .... YIKES !!!!
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    What do I have to stay away from ?
    Many thanks and à bientôt !

    As far as I can see the difference between those drives is slim 12.5mm or ultra slim 9.5mm height. (Are you sure there not Hitachi?) I'm 95% sure the TiBooks will take the 12.5mm drives.I recommend looking in Apple System Profile to see exactly what model you currently have installed and then find one with the same dimensions.
    hth
    mrtotes
    Deal Time
    Deal Time 7k60
    Toshiba Laptop HDD

  • Serial ATA vs. Ultra ATA/100

    Hi.
    My Macbooks HD crashed last weekend (folder with questionmark, etc.) and I went online to find out what the reason is. After reading some discussion boards I decided to order a new one. So I did order a TravelStar 5K160. It arrived yesterday and when I tried to replace it, that the interfaces do not match. Looks like the new harddisk has a Serial ATA interface, where the old one had a Ultra ATA/100 (Check out http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/11/11/fastandfurious/ My new one looks like the one on top, where the old one looks like the one below.)
    Is there anything I can do to make the new one working or did I just really order the wrong HD???
    Message was edited by: Coolcumber

    Hi Coolcumber and welcome to Discussions,
    the MacBooks have always had SATA as the connection interface for the internal HD.
    Can it be that the new one is a IDE/PATA and not your old one ?
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  • Ultra ATA hard drives???

    So i have a 120gb Ultra ATA hard drive so i bought a casing to make it an external HD but it would not show up in disk utility or my desktop. So i took a regular ATA HD and it worked fine. my question is does apple not support Ultra ATA or is there somthing else i need to do to get it show up?

    What are the manufacturer's recommended jumper settings for the drive when installed in an enclosure?
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  • Ultra ATA Hard Drive

    I bought a Ultra ATA Hard Drive for my Mac and the connections are different. I looked up online that you can buy an adapter to switch it over to a Mac compatible connection. Will this work fine and be just as good as if it was normally this connection? Thank you very much.

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    Hi I want to use the ultra ata in ide 3 but it never recognizes it.....what can I do to make sure it does. I have two drives connected master and slave to the ide.

    Hi
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