controler purpose?

[RenaissanceMan]

Hey, I see alot of people using separate controlers for their hard drives, ie, promise.. etc.. what is the advantage of using a controler card instead of the port on the mb?
thanks.

[RLT65]

It seems that new hard disks are getting faster all the time. ATA33 was the norm for a while till ATA66 & now there is ATA100.
For example, if your motherboard only supports ATA33, but you have an ATA100 hard disk, you could buy an ATA100 controller card for around $50, or swap the entire motherboard & get one that supports the faster drive speed. The controller card is an easier upgrade and usually cheaper. BTW ATA33 is 33MB/sec, ATA66 is 66MB/sec etc.

Rhonda

[Jonty]

Also, if you have a couple or so hard drives, a Zip drive, CD-ROM, CD-RW etc you will run out of places to plug them in on the board, so a controller is the answer.

[RenaissanceMan]

Thanks for the information people.
happy new year.
http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

[Long Haired Hippie Phreek]

Not to mention SCSI and RAID...