Datasheet

Identifying Motherboards 43
ATA-6 supports UltraDMA/100, with transfer modes of up to 100Mbps.
If an ATA-5 or ATA-6 drive is used with a normal 40-wire cable or is used
on a system that doesn’t support the higher modes, it reverts to the ATA-4
performance level.
ATA-7 supports UltraDMA/133, with transfer modes of up to 150Mbps and serial ATA
(discussed later).
ATA-8 made only minor revisions to ATA-7 and also supports UltraDMA/133, with
transfer modes of up to 150Mbps and serial ATA.
IDE Pros and Cons
The primary benefit of IDE is that it’s nearly universally supported. Almost every mother-
board has IDE connectors. In addition, IDE devices are typically the cheapest and most read-
ily available type.
A typical motherboard has two IDE connectors, and each connector can support up to
two drives on the same cable. That means you’re limited to four IDE devices per system
unless you add an expansion board containing another IDE interface. In contrast, with
SCSI you can have up to seven drives per interface (or even more on some types of SCSI).
Performance also may suffer when IDE devices share an interface. When you’re burning
CDs, for example, if the reading and writing CD drives are both on the same cable, errors
may occur. SCSI drives are much more efficient with this type of transfer.
Installation and Configuration
To install an IDE drive, do the following:
1. Set the master/slave jumper on the drive.
2. Install the drive in the drive bay.
3. Connect the power-supply cable.
4. Connect the ribbon cable to the drive and to the motherboard or IDE expansion board.
5. Configure the drive in BIOS Setup if it isn’t automatically detected.
6. Partition and format the drive using the operating system.
Each IDE interface can have only one master drive on it. If there are two drives on
a single cable, one of them must be the slave drive. This setting is accomplished via a
jumper on the drive. Some drives have a separate setting for Single (that is, master with
no slave) and Master (that is, master with a slave); others use the Master setting generi-
cally to refer to either case. Figure 1.17 shows a typical master/slave jumper scenario, but
different drives may have different jumper positions to represent each state. Today, the
need for jumper settings has decreased as many drives can autodetect the master/slave
relationship.
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