Re: ATA-5 and ATA-6: The differences, and why it's important was Re: Lombard

[B.L.]

  From: PeterH5322 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

If both behave by the rules, then any combination works.

If one behaves by the rules, but the other doesn't, then the combination
is indeterminate ... might work, might not work.

If both misbehave, then no combination works (Lombard and Pismo, and 
late Toshiba and Hitachi/IBM).

It's that simple.

Those who have Lombards or Pismos, and want to get into the "sweet spot"
of $$$/GB, say, 60 or 80 GB, are going to have to look for earlier
Toshibas or Hitachi/IBMs, which are quickly going out of inventory. OTOH,
the new Seagate laptop models seem to be OK, although this is not from
first-hand experience.

The best drive for the Lombard and Pismo, IMO, is the recently
discontinued Hitachi/IBM 5K80.

--
Peter ; Thank you for your insights into this matter and it seems that I 
have an ATA-6 40gb drive made by Toshiba model id MK4025GAS so it looks 
as if I might have to find someone to trade with. Oh, well so be it.




***
  >

-- 
Brad
55417-1734
"Pwr Mac G4 64 MB Radeon 7000 AGP Graphics OWC Mercury Extreme 1GHZ CPU
Upgrade 1.15GB Ram 9GB Quantum Fireball/ OS 9.2.2 WDC 80GB/ OS X.4.4
Pioneer DVR 105
Pwr Mac G3 B&W 64MB Radeon 7000 PCI Graphics card 450MHZ CPU 1gb ram 120
gb Maxtor DiamondMaxPlus X.4.4/80gb Hitachi Deskstar Sata harddrive X.4/
40gb Maxtor DiamondMax ATA hard drive/9.2.2 Seritek SATA Controller
card/Pioneer DVR 105 OS X.3.9/ Lexmark X1185 all- in- one printer
Powerbook 3400c 200MHZ, 144MB ram, 2gig harddrive, OS 9.1, modules;
floppy, cd-rom, zip drive
Pwrbk G3 Lombard 128mb ram/4gb hard drive/ OS X.2.8

If it's good to you, it's good for you







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Re: ATA-5 and ATA-6: The differences, and why it's important

[PeterH5322]

>Don't be too quick to damn Samsung drives. I put a brand new 60gb  
>5400rpm Samsung drive in my wife's Pismo last spring. The drive has  
>performed flawlessly since then.

I'm not "damning" Samsung, not at all.

Samsung was (perhaps still is) the "value leader" in state-of-the-art 
fluid dynamic bearing laptop drives.

I was an early tester and adopter of these "Spinrite" drives, and I love 
'em, lots and lots.

My Wallstreets all have 40 GB Spinrites.

However, when it came time to upgrade the then new-to-me Lombard and 
Pismo PBs, Spinrites turned out to be a no-go.

Perhaps Samsung has changed its firmware to accommodate the flaw. It 
would be in good company as Hitachi and Toshiba also have the same, or a 
similar flaw in some of their newer drives.

Anyway, when it came time to upgrade my Lombard, I bought and installed a 
Spinrite, and it wouldn't work for the reasons detailed previously. I 
returned the Spinrite, and took a 15 percent restocking charge.

Then I bought a Hitachi/IBM 5K80, and it worked like a champ.

Later, I obtained the Pismo and tried a new Spinrite in it, and it also 
was a no-go. Yet another 15 percent restocking charge.

So, I placed an order for an IBM 5K80, but the seller "subbed" a 
like-sized newer model Hitachi/IBM drive (I don't remember its 
designation), and that one was a no-go, too. Yet another restocking 
charge ... waived at my very strong insistence.

When I FINALLY got the 5K80 I originally ordered in the Pismo, it was 
very happy.

Thereafter, I went on to experience interface problems, and to solve 
these, too, with fast DVD recorders, in Lombards and Pismos.

So, it is not just hard drives which have problems with Lombards and 
Pismos!

The "fix" for the fast DVD recorder is in hacked DVD recorder firmware.

Sadly, this hacked DVD recorder firmware is applicable only to the 
Pioneer DVR-K15 drive.

However, the trials and tribulations were worth it as my Lombard and 
Pismo work perfectly as portable/field use DVD/CD authoring/duplicating 
machines, and with the same or better performance as my stationary B&W 
machines.

Lombard: 400 MHz hardware DVD decoder (OS 9)/software decoder (OS X) 60 
GB IBM 5K80

Pismo: 500 MHz hardware DVD decoder (OS 9)/software decoder (OS X) 60 GB 
IBM 5K80

B&W #1: 450 MHz hardware DVD decoder (OS 9)/software decoder (OS X) 300 
GB Seagate

B&W #2: 400 MHz hardware DVD decoder (OS 9)/software decoder (OS X) 300 
GB Maxtor

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Re: ATA-5 and ATA-6: The differences, and why it's important

[Dylan McDermond]

On Feb 11, 2006, at 3:32 PM, PeterH5322 wrote:


This is primarily a Lombard and Pismo issue. And, those Lombards and
Pismos which are provided with drives which don't auto-negotiate
properly, which may include the latest Toshiba and Hitachi/IBM drives,
and which definitely includes the Samsung drives,


Don't be too quick to damn Samsung drives. I put a brand new 60gb  
5400rpm Samsung drive in my wife's Pismo last spring. The drive has  
performed flawlessly since then.


-Dylan

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Re: ATA-5 and ATA-6: The differences, and why it's important was Re: Lombard Start

[B.L.]

G-Books wrote on 2/11/06, 17:16:

 > On a typical PC, users and the OS have some level of control over
 > just *how* the IDE interface(s) communicate with their drives -- they
 > can tell a fast IDE controller to speak s-l-o-w-l-y with
 > less-compliant drives. We Mac people have no such smarts available,
 > and have to live with whatever defaults the chips are set up for.
 >Hope this explains things :)
Geoffrey
Thanks very much Geoffrey this explains a lot but as most answers are 
wont to do this leads to another question; which is this is the ATA-4, 
-5,-6 designation on hard drives. Because I was given a laptop drive 
which I had planned to put in my Lombard when this ATA dilemma entered 
the picture. Now I'm trying to figure out how to determine the pedigree 
of this drive, which is currently residing in a firewire enclosure being 
prepped for the Lombard. Is it written on the drive. Or can it be 
determined from the drive information; such as manufacturer, model 
number, etc etc. Thanks for any and all assistance.


-- 
Brad
55417-1734
"Pwr Mac G4 64 MB Radeon 7000 AGP Graphics OWC Mercury Extreme 1GHZ CPU
Upgrade 1.15GB Ram 9GB Quantum Fireball/ OS 9.2.2 WDC 80GB/ OS X.4.4
Pioneer DVR 105
Pwr Mac G3 B&W 64MB Radeon 7000 PCI Graphics card 450MHZ CPU 1gb ram 120
gb Maxtor DiamondMaxPlus X.4.4/80gb Hitachi Deskstar Sata harddrive X.4/
40gb Maxtor DiamondMax ATA hard drive/9.2.2 Seritek SATA Controller
card/Pioneer DVR 105 OS X.3.9/ Lexmark X1185 all- in- one printer

Pwrbk G3 Lombard 128mb ram/4gb hard drive/ OS X.2.8

If it's good to you, it's good for you



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Re: ATA-5 and ATA-6: The differences, and why it's important

[PeterH5322]

>Alas, the PowerBook's IDE chip goes "Huh? I don't understand what 
>you're saying, I'll just ignore you for now, I'm busy."

This is primarily a Lombard and Pismo issue. And, those Lombards and 
Pismos which are provided with drives which don't auto-negotiate 
properly, which may include the latest Toshiba and Hitachi/IBM drives, 
and which definitely includes the Samsung drives, but doesn't include the 
Seagate drives or older Toshiba or IBM drives.

It takes two to tango. Both the initiator (the PB) and the responder (the 
drive) have to behave according to the rules.

Sometimes, when one party, say, a Lombard or Pismo, misbehaves, all still 
goes well, as it does with early Toshiba and IBM drives. Sometimes not.

Sometimes, when the other party, say, a Samsung or late Toshiba or 
Hitachi/IBM drive, misbehaves, all still goes well, as it does with a 
Wallstreet PB and perhaps some others. Sometimes not.

If both behave by the rules, then any combination works.

If one behaves by the rules, but the other doesn't, then the combination 
is indeterminate ... might work, might not work.

If both misbehave, then no combination works (Lombard and Pismo, and late 
Toshiba and Hitachi/IBM).

It's that simple.

Those who have Lombards or Pismos, and want to get into the "sweet spot" 
of $$$/GB, say, 60 or 80 GB, are going to have to look for earlier 
Toshibas or Hitachi/IBMs, which are quickly going out of inventory. OTOH, 
the new Seagate laptop models seem to be OK, although this is not from 
first-hand experience.

The best drive for the Lombard and Pismo, IMO, is the recently 
discontinued Hitachi/IBM 5K80.

-- 
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ATA-5 and ATA-6: The differences, and why it's important

[Geoffrey Peters]

Stardate 060211.11:19 -0600. A subspace message from B.L. reads:


the drive controller in G3 PowerBooks is incompatible with ATA-6 hard

drives. When replacing the internal hard drive, you should be sure to
obtain an ATA-5 compliant drive,
**
I've seen this warning posted before and wondered how one would be able
to tell whether or not a drive was Ata5, Ata6 or what have you.


You think that the LEM specs-pages would at least use the more 
popular interpretations :)


ATA-5 means that the drive supports (and prefers) Ultra-DMA/66 mode 
(meaning it can support data transfer rates up to 66 Mbps (megabits 
per second), whereas ATA-6 drives supports (and defaults to) 
Ultra-DMA/100 mode (100 Mbps).


In our older PowerBooks that don't like ATA-6, the IDE/ATA controller 
chips aren't all that clever, and don't know anything about 
Ultra-DMA/100. When such an equipped Mac encounters a UDMA-100 drive 
as part of it's "let's get going and see where everything is" routine 
at power-on or restart, the onboard chip sends out a query and 
listens for any IDE device's response-code. An ATA-6 hard drive sees 
the query and goes "Hi! I talk Ultra-DMA/100, you look friendly!" 
Alas, the PowerBook's IDE chip goes "Huh? I don't understand what 
you're saying, I'll just ignore you for now, I'm busy."


On a typical PC, users and the OS have some level of control over 
just *how* the IDE interface(s) communicate with their drives -- they 
can tell a fast IDE controller to speak s-l-o-w-l-y with 
less-compliant drives. We Mac people have no such smarts available, 
and have to live with whatever defaults the chips are set up for.


Hope this explains things :)


Geoffrey
--
--  Endian Little Hate I --- --
 "I'm afraid music in the modern idiom is too repetitive for my tastes
... although the rhythm does have a certain hypnotic effect." -- Brains
(International Rescue Engineer, 'Thunderbirds' (c) Gerry Anderson 1969)

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