I bought an internal harddrive with an external case but it seems that they won't work together. The hard drive is a SATA drive while the external is ummm....something else (the data cable isn't as small). Anyways, before I go back to the computer store to exchange this for an external case with a SATA interface I just want to know if SATA Harddrives will work for my macbook.
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Hmm I bought the wrong Harddrive...
- Thread starter WillMak
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The external enclosure is probably IDE/ATA, which is incompatible with SATA drives as you noted.
The MacBook does in fact take SATA drives.
The MacBook does in fact take SATA drives.
You can go either way: get a PATA (Parallel ATA) drive to match your case, or get a case with a SATA (Serial ATA) interface to match your drive. The first is trivial, the later is a little bit more complicated. External cases for SATA drives are fairly new, and there aren't that many available yet.
Your Mac should work with either combination. The interface is internal to the case, and doesn't show on the USB or Firewire connection.
Your Mac should work with either combination. The interface is internal to the case, and doesn't show on the USB or Firewire connection.
Thanks guys. I really would rather do the latter of the two since the cheapest drive they had (the one I got) was a 300 GB maxtor SATA for 70 bucks. The other non sata drives were in the hundreds with less GB. Is SATA the crappier of the two?
Yes, the only concern is that the case and the drive match. It doesn't matter what type of drive it is. Although if you're buying 2.5" for some reason, buy SATA so you could put it inside your Macbook if you wanted.
Ah, yes...I misinterpreted your question about compatibility with the MacBook. The MacBook requires SATA drives for internal use. It can use either SATA or ATA drives as externals. But yes, the enclosure and the external drive have to be of the same type.
Sweet. YEa I have a 3.5 inch SATA so I'm gonna go look for external cases tommorow and return the ATA case. I just hope compusa allowx me to return it even tho I opened it.
SATA is the newer interface, is faster, and has easier to handle connectors. Performance wise you might not able to dell the difference with an external case however, as the USB-2.0 or Firewire-400 connection is probably limiting the throughput anyway.
SATA is the newer, better (for a number of reasons) interface. As for pricing, the SATA version of a given drive is usually a few bucks ($5-10) more than the ATA version, but sales and specials can affect that sometimes.