8/28/2018 IDE vs SATA - Difference and Comparison | Diffen

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IDE vs. SATA

Diffen › Technology › Consumer Electronics › Computer Hardware

IDE and SATA are different types of interfaces to connect storage devices (like
hard drives) to a computer's system bus. SATA stands for Serial Advanced
Technology Attachment (or Serial ATA) and IDE is also called Parallel ATA
or PATA. SATA is the newer standard and SATA drives are faster than PATA
(IDE) drives. For many years ATA provided the most common and the least
expensive interface for this application. But by the beginning of 2007, SATA had
largely replaced IDE in all new systems.

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The ATA interface (ATA stands for AT attachment where "AT" refers to IBM's
PC/AT for which it was originally built) evolved in stages from Western Digital's
original Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) interface. After the introduction of
Serial ATA in 2003, the original ATA was retroactively renamed Parallel ATA.

Comparison chart

IDE SATA
Advantages Maximum compatibility Inexpensive, large storage
capacity.

Disadvantages Lacks support for new technology Lower MTBF than SAS (700,000
such as native command queuing hours to 1.2 million hours of use
and hot-plugging hard drives at 25 °C), less suited for servers.

Hot plugging IDE interface does not support SATA interface supports hot
(add/remove hot plugging plugging
component while
the computer is
running)

Speed data transfers at the rate of up to Data transfers at the rate of up to

133MB/s 6 Gb/s

Data cable Ribbon-like, wide, can be up to Narrow, can be up to a meter

18 inches long (roughly 3ft) long. Power and
data split into two connections.

Lineage Superseded by SATA Supersedes Parallel ATA (PATA)

aka IDE

Year Created 1986 2003

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IDE SATA

Jumpers In a computer system, it's SATA drives don't use jumpers.

possible to have more than one Each drive connects directly to
harddrive. To connect multiple the motherboard. To set the
IDE drives, you need to chain the primary drive, you can access the
ribbon cables from one to the settings from the computers
next. The computer system has BIOS (special software that runs
no idea which is the main drive, when you start the computer).
from which to load the OS.

Contents: IDE vs SATA

1 Differences in Cables and Connectors 6.1 Air flow
6.2 Hot Plugging
2 Video
6.3 Power Consumption
3 Adapters and Integrated Motherboards
6.4 Master/Slave Configuration
4 Variants
7 Where to Buy
5 Speed
8 References
6 Operation

Differences in Cables and Connectors

Hard drives need a cable/connection for data and one
for power. Parallel ATA only allows data cable lengths
up to 18 in (457 mm) while SATA allows cable lengths
up to 1 m (3.28 ft). eSATA cables can be 2 m in length.

IDE consists of a 40-pin connector attached to a

ribbon cable. 80-pin connectors were also introduced
later. The connectors are black in a 40-pin connector
SATA (right) and IDE (left) hard
while in an 80-pin connector, they come in 3 colors: drives. The SATA hard drive has the
blue - controller, gray - slave drive, and black - master
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data cable on the right and power 3/8
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drive. Each cable has two or three connectors, one cable on the left. The IDE data cable
connector is attached to the interface that connects to is ribbon-like (on the left)

the computer system (mother board) and the others

are connected to the drives.

SATA consists of an 8 mm wide wafer connector on each end and the cable has a 7-pin
connector, 3 grounds and 4 active data lines in two pairs. It has the facility to attach
only one drive and so Serial ATA does away with Master/Slave configurations.

Video
This video explains how to change the hard drive on a desktop computer; it also shows
the differences between SATA and IDE connector cables.

Understanding and upgrading your hard drive

Adapters and Integrated Motherboards

You can buy integrated motherboards that allow a computer to use both SATA and IDE
hard drives. However, only one of the two may be used at any given time and both
cannot be used simultaneously.
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8/28/2018 IDE vs SATA - Difference and Comparison | Diffen
be used with a SATA motherboard and vice versa. These IDE/SATA adapters mask the
underlying hard drive and simulate its functioning to match the expectations of the
computer's motherboard. They usually cost less than $15.

Variants
Two variant of SATA - eSATA and eSATAp - are available. eSATA is meant for external
connectivity. eSATA cannot supply power from the motherboard to the hard drive. In
order to overcome this limitation, eSATAp drives were introduced. eSATAp port
combines the strength of both eSATA (high speed) and USB (compatibility) into a single
port.

Speed
Data transfer speed for IDE ranges from 5MB/s up to 133MB/s (ATA100/133). The
parallel wire transfer mode reached its limit with the speed of 133 MB/s.

SATA took off where ATA stopped as far as speed is concerned. The first generation of
SATA was 1.2 Gbit/s (150 MB/s; note that MB is megabytes and Gb is gigabits) similar
to PATA/133. Today the third generation of SATA (3.0) (released on May 27, 2009), 6
Gbit/s (600 MB/s) hard drives and motherboards are being used.

Operation
Air flow
The wide wire in IDE cables caused airflow problems inside the case. The narrower
SATA cable allows free airflow inside the case.

Hot Plugging
SATA drives have an additional feature of Hot plugging which mean that even as the
computer is running drives can be removed or added.

Power Consumption
PATA (IDE) drives need 5 volts and 12 volts in desktop form factor.
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SATA drives use 5 & 12 volts & 'can' include 3 volts as well

but nearly all current disk drives do not use the 3.3 V line.

Master/Slave Configuration
SATA has also done away with the master/slave configuration (technically, device 0 and
device 1) used in IDE drives. With PATA (IDE), attaching two hard disks to the same
channel required one to be set to be the master, the other the slave. For hardware, this
usually meant setting the right jumper settings.

But the SATA bus is a serial point-to-point bus, which means only one device can be
connected on each channel. Many SATA drives can connect to the motherboard via
multiple ports, and the drive to boot from is specified in the BIOS settings.

Where to Buy
IDE Drives (on Amazon)
SATA Hard Drives (on Amazon)
IDE/SATA adapters

References
Wikipedia: Integrated Drive Electronics
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Wikipedia: Serial ATA
How to 'Slave' a SATA Drive when the 'Master' is Also SATA

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Comments: IDE vs SATA

Anonymous comments (2)

July 9, 2013, 12:30am

very good information and in a simple language.

— 115.✗.✗.158

April 19, 2014, 5:03am

Good

— 1.✗.✗.202

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