ATA66 or higher drive/controller with ATA33 cable?

ubersonic · 6 Apr 2017 at 13:34

Hey, been a long time and some memories have clouded, hoping somebody can remember this one.

Obviously if you connect an ATA66 or higher drive to an ATA33 controller it will scale down, and the same will happen if you connect an ATA33 drive to an ATA66 or higher controller. But what if you connect an ATA66 or higher drive to an ATA66 or higher controller using an ATA33 cable? Will they manage to work out they need to scale down or will you get errors?

Thanks.

bledd · 6 Apr 2017 at 13:37

If you use an ATA33 cable, the drive will just slow down to that speed. Couple of times in the past I had to use a ATA33 cable as a temporary workaround (when no 66's were availiable)

Can I ask why are you asking ?

ubersonic · 6 Apr 2017 at 13:57

Cool, was worried the controller and drive may just assume they had an ATA66+ cable because they were both ATA66+

I'm going to archive/smash a load of old ATA drives in the loft but was worried the ATA66 and higher ones may have issues as the controller card I was planning to use is ATA133 and the caddy for the removable bay I'm planning to use is only ATA33.

bledd · 6 Apr 2017 at 14:14

Gotcha