ATA-100, ATA-133, etc ???

[LegendBreath]

Hi,
What is the difference betwen ATA-100, ATA-133, etc ? (you know the rest there)

 

[TheMajor]

ATA 100 devices can run at a maximum transfer rate of 100MB/s. ATA 133 at 133MB/s wich is the maximum of any IDE controller.

Older IDE controllers will only support ATA33, 66 or 100 speeds. You can still use an ATA133 hard disk on an old controler though.

Hard disks will rarely run at these speeds, these are ony "burst" speeds, wich means the speed at wich the HD can send its buffer content to the IDE controller. (or something similar )

An 80 pin IDE cable is required for anything higher than ATA 33.

 

[LegendBreath]

Thanks!

BTW: What is the difference between EIDE and IDE?

 

[TheMajor]

Actually, when people say IDE they are actually referring to EIDE.
IDE is very old and means Intergrated Drive Electronics.
EIDE means Enhanced Integrated Drive Electronics and is the current standard for any (E)IDE hard disk.

 

[gaara]

If you are building a new system, you will want a motherboard with SATAII capabilities.