ATA/100 drive on a ATA/66 bus?

dstranathandstranathan
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
I always heard that it was OK to put an ATA/100 or ATA/133 drive in a ATA/66 Mac without problems. But the people at PC Warehouse, a small PC component reseller downtown KC, swear that using an ATA 100 drive on a 66 bus will work initially, but

will eventually trash the drive. They even tried using a 66MHz firmware patch from Western Digital once and the drive quit working immediately.



Can anyone tell me the truth about this? I have been putting ATA/133 drives in my Graphite G4s (ATA/66 bus). Am I in for major problems soon?



I have never heard of such a problem, and I have never had any problems as of yet. Do these guys know what the %^$# they are talking about?





Thanks!

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    I figured it was just like using PC133 RAM on a PC100 box; you're only as slow as the bus. I've got an ATA/100 drive sitting inside of a beige g3... been there for about eight months now, no problems.
  • Reply 2 of 5
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    Don't worry. It's perfectly okay to do that.

    M3D Jack is correct about it just slowing down to the speed of the bus.
  • Reply 3 of 5
    bradbowerbradbower Posts: 1,068member
    I've got an UltraATA 133 drive in my ATA 66 iMac. It's working fine, and should continue to do so. There's no reason that you can't do that, and it sounds like either WD makes some ****ed up drives, or else they were pulling your leg.
  • Reply 4 of 5
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    Yeah, I think their techs just saw a few lemons, and decided to attribute it to running a faster driver on a slower bus. Either the drives they've seen do that are lemons, or the box they plugged them into are. Sounds to me like they're lazy bastards
  • Reply 5 of 5
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    Yeah, I think their techs just saw a few lemons, and decided to attribute it to running a faster driver on a slower bus. Either the drives they've seen do that are lemons, or the box they plugged them into are. Sounds to me like they're lazy bastards
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