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ATA or IDE ?

M

Mushroom Prince

Gawd
Joined
Feb 20, 2004
Messages
532
I'm trying to figure out what kind of harddrive to get. I would be interested in any recomendations you people might have.


IDE or ATA ?

and if ATA ... what speed ATA ?
 
IDE=ATA
The two terms are generally interchangeable with the exception of the new SATA spec. Generally the faster the better but if you only browse the web or such you won't notice much difference.
 
ATA is the physical interface, the 40 or 80 sires attaching your hard drive to the controller.

IDE is the protocols it uses to transmit that data.

So um assuming you meat Serial ATA or Parallel ATA, it really doesn't matter. The speed difference is minute. Serial ATA has a nice advantage of smaller and cleaner cables but of course it's a little more expensive because it's new.

If you go Parallel ATA get ATA 100 or 133 (you won't find any other speeds in new drives). I think SATA 150 is the only Serial ATA speed available right now.
 
Originally posted by lord_emperor
ATA is the physical interface, the 40 or 80 sires attaching your hard drive to the controller.

IDE is the protocols it uses to transmit that data.

So um assuming you meat Serial ATA or Parallel ATA, it really doesn't matter. The speed difference is minute. Serial ATA has a nice advantage of smaller and cleaner cables but of course it's a little more expensive because it's new.

If you go Parallel ATA get ATA 100 or 133 (you won't find any other speeds in new drives). I think SATA 150 is the only Serial ATA speed available right now.
Click to expand...

It's the other way around, ATA is the protocol, IDE is the interface.
 
ATA\ATAPI History

ATA (aka ATA-1 or IDE)

ATA (ATA-1) is ANSI document number X3.221-1994.

ATA is the real standard for what is widely known as IDE.

In 1999, at the recommendation of NCITS T13, ATA (ATA-1) was withdrawn as an ANSI standard.

ATA-2 (aka EIDE, FASTATA, ...)

ATA-2 is ANSI document number X3.279-1996.

ATA-2 is the real standard for what is widely known as EIDE. ATA-2 introduced higher speed data transfer modes: PIO Modes 3 and 4 plus Multword DMA Mode 1 and 2. These modes allow the ATA interface to run data transfers up to about 16MB/second.


Is it IDE, EIDE, FASTATA, ... ?

So starting with ATA-2 what do we call this I/O interface?

* IDE ?
* EIDE ?
* FASTATA ?
* FASTATA-2 ?
* ULTRA ATA ?

Most companies now call the interface by its proper name: ATA or ATAPI.

The other names are all the result of marketing hype from one or more of the companies making ATA products.

IDE was used by Conner Peripherals, Compaq and Western Digital starting back in 1986-1987. It continues to be widely used as the alternate name for ATA.

EIDE was first used by Western Digital to hype a new line of disk drives back in 1993 or 1994. These were ATA-2 compatible drives that supported the new PIO modes 3 and 4 data transfer timings. Western Digital was trying to establish itself as a major disk drive supplier in those days. Western Digital continues to use EIDE to describe their products even though the ATA interface has progressed well beyond the capabilities of ATA-2. Western Digital just keeps redefining what they mean by EIDE!

FASTATA and FASTATA-2 were used by Seagate and Quantum in marketing programs that were intended to counter the Western Digital EIDE marketing hype back in 1993 or 1994. It appears that by 1998 both Seagate and Quantum had stopped using these alternative names for ATA products.

In 1999 some companies started to use ULTRA ATA to describe products that support the ATA/ATAPI-4 Ultra DMA 33 data transfer protocols. We will have to wait and see what cute name the disk drive marketing folks come up with to sell ATA/ATAPI-5's Ultra DMA 66 data transfer protocols.

Bottom line: These are all just alternative names for ATA used mostly by marketing departments to make it sound like they have a REALLY NEW AND IMPROVED product that is somehow different from the competition's product.

Just remember: IT IS ALL MARKETING HYPE!

An IDE, EIDE, FASTATA or ULTRA ATA device is really an ATA (or ATAPI) device and all such devices are generally compatible with each other and can be used in the same system and even on the same ATA cable. Of course there are exceptions (devices that don't conform to the ATA or ATA/ATAPI standards)
Click to expand...

Hale Landis maintains the ata-atapi.com website, and has been working for open standards for 25 years. He has been a participant in the ANSI X3/NCITS Technical Committees that developed the ATA and ATA/ATAPI standards since 1990, and works as a consultant and provider of test software.

did you mean IDE\ATA or SATA by chance?
IDE\ATA is now often refered to as PATA or Parallel ATA
versus Serial ATA SATA
which is the newer standard
 
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