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dictionary:ata

An acronym for AT Attachment, a disk drive implementation that integrates the controller on the disk drive itself. This is often known as IDE technology or in more advanced forms, EIDE. There are several versions of ATA, all developed by the Small Form Factor (SFF) Committee: (Contrary to popular belief, this is not headed by Jenny Craig!)

1. ATA: Known also as IDE, supports one or two hard drives, a 16-bit interface and PIO modes 0, 1 and 2.

2. ATA-2: Supports faster PIO modes (3 and 4) and multiword DMA modes (1 and 2). Also supports logical block addressing (LBA) and block transfers. ATA-2 is marketed as Fast ATA and Enhanced IDE (EIDE).

3. ATA-3: Minor revision to ATA-2.

4. Ultra-ATA: Also called Ultra-DMA, ATA-33, and DMA-33, supports multiword DMA mode 3 running at 33 MBps.

5. ATA/66: A new version of ATA proposed by Quantum Corporation, and supported by Intel, that will double ATA’s throughput to 66 MBps. The first ATA/66 computers were introduced in early 1999. Since Intel is also backing this, it is expected to become the standard.

6. ATA/100: A new version of ATA finalized in October of 2001. It is known as the Ultra DMA 100 standard.

7. ATA/133: A new version of ATA finalized in May of 2002 that sets the standards for the Ultra DMA 133.

dictionary/ata.txt · Last modified: 2007/11/17 18:05 (external edit)