UDMA 66 cable with UDMA 33 drive

Hi Larry,
I think you might have touched on this in your FAQ's on hard drives, but I am curious... I found on Maxtor's web site that they recommend using a UDMA 66 cable for their DiamondMax 4320 UDMA 33 drives (of which I have one). Why is this? Does the UDMA 66 cable increase the throughput of data from the drive, or? My MB only has a 40 pin connector for UDMA 33 drives--can I use a UDMA 66 cable on it? Thanks in advance for your insight on this!
John

1. RE: UDMA 66 cable with UDMA 33 drive
lbyard Oct-20-00 05:56 AM
In response to message 0

The ATA/66 cable has 40 pins and should work with an ATA/33 drive. I would not go out of my way and spend the extra money to get an ATA/66 cable for an ATA/33 drive. ATA/66 cables have better noise immunity characteristics, etc. I have never encountered a problem using an ATA/33 cable on an ATA/33 drive and I have installed many of them. Larry

2. RE: UDMA 66 cable with UDMA 33 drive
floyd1022 Oct-21-00 05:46 AM
In response to message 0

LAST EDITED ON Oct-21-00 AT 05:46 AM (GMT)
I have 2 systems running UDMA 66 as master and UDMA 33 as slave. No problems at all.
Rich

3. RE: UDMA 66 cable with UDMA 33 drive
deerslayer Dec-19-00 11:32 AM
In response to message 2

When using the 66 cables on A 33 motherboard do you have to choose cable select in the bios to get the drive recognized? I tried using the 66 cables when I built my pc and i had to switch over to a 33 cable to get it to work. I didn't try choosing cable select.
thanks!

4. RE: UDMA 66 cable with UDMA 33 drive
lbyard Dec-19-00 02:25 PM
In response to message 3

I have had no problems using ATA/66 cables with ATA/33 drives. Be sure the correct end of the cable is plugged into the motherboard (it should be labeled/blue) and that the ATA/33 drive is connected to the very end of the other end if it is the only drive on the cable. If you connect both kinds of drives on the cable, the ATA/66 drive goes on the end connector. Larry