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ATA/IDE Hard Drives

 

This drive is more commonly called the IDE  (Intelligent Drive Electronics or Integrated Drive Electronics). This is by far at the moment the most commonly used type of hard drive out there.  primarily used in desktops.  This drive will soon become a thing of the past being replaced by its new cousin the SATA (Serial-Advanced Technology Attachment).  ATA is limited in a few areas.  The first is that it is limited to 133mbps (megabytes per second) data transfer rate.  Secondly, it has a very bulky 40 pin data cable versus the SATA 4 pin much smaller cable.  With that said ATA has all been called Parallel ATA for its size.  IDE connection types require a jumper to set the type of drive whether it is a master, slave, or cable select.  Below are some pictures of an IDE/ATA hard drive.

 

As you can see the cable is not exactly small, they measure about 2" wide.  This can cause a air flow problem in a chassis.  Today's computers need a lot of air flow, unless you have water cooled system setup.  IDE/ATA is on its way out the door.  SATA is up and coming.  RCCS at this point uses only SATA hard drive in new desktop installations.

 

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