Compatibility between ATA SATA UltraATA drives...?

tikibars · Post by **tikibars** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 10:49 am

Hi

I am running a MDD G4.
Specs show that the internal bus is Ultra ATA.
All of the internal drives being sold these days seem to be SATA.
Can SATA drives be used with my computer (or any Ultra ATA bus) without buying cards or adapters?

Also -
Heat is a problem with this model Mac; will a 500GB SATA drive - if compatible - introduce much more heat into my box?

TIA -

James

sdemott · Post by **sdemott** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 11:15 am

No (mostly...but read on) - SATA and ATA are different technologies that use different connection types. SATA is an updated version of the ATA protocol made to compete with SCSI speeds.

You can, however, get a SATA to IDE converter to allow a SATA drive to interconnect to your ATA (nee IDE) hardware. You will not be taking advantage of the SATA speed benefits and may even notice slightly deteriorated performance because of the conversion.

I was able to find some IDE (ATA) drives here: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/3.5-IDE-ATA/

HTH

tikibars · Post by **tikibars** » Sun Dec 09, 2007 10:06 am

Cool, thanks Steve.

One more question, if SATA drives are faster than ATA/Ultra ATA/IDE drives, how does the speed of a Firewire drive compare with these?