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Advanced Technology Attachment (ATA), also referred to as Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) is a disk drive interface standard based on the IBM PC ISA 16-bit bus but also used on other personal computers. ATA specifies the power and data signal interfaces between the motherboard and the integrated disk controller and drive. The ATA "bus" only supports two devices - master and slave.[1]

Form factor

ATA drives may use any physical interface the manufacturer requires, so long as an embedded translator is included with the proper ATA interface.[2] 3.5-inch drives originally used a 40-pin connector while 2.5 and 1.8-inch mobile drives used a physically smaller 44-pin connector.[3] ATA "controllers" are actually direct connections to the ISA bus. Since CompactFlash and PC Cards are also based on ISA, adapters exist for those form factors to IDE.[4]

History

The first Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) interface and drives were released by Compaq in 1986, developed with Western Digital, Imprimis Technology, and then-upstart Conner Peripherals. Efforts to standardize the interface started in 1988; the first draft appeared in March 1989, and a finished version was sent to ANSI group X3T10, who named it "Advanced Technology Attachment" (ATA) for ratification in November 1990.[1][2]

Standards and limitations

The X3T10 group later extended ATA to Advanced Technology Attachment Interface with Extensions (ATA-2), followed by ATA-3 through ATA-6. The ATA-7 standard became known as Serial ATA (SATA) 1.0. The older standards were retroactively referred to as "Parallel ATA" (PATA).[1][5]

The first IDE specification used 22-bit addressing, which supported drive capacity up to 2 GB (like early HFS). Subsequent standards through ATA-5 (also known as Ultra ATA/66) used 28-bit logical block addressing (LBA28), which supported recognizable drive space up to 128 GB. This required larger hard drives to be partitioned down to increments of 128 GB or less. ATA-6 (also known as Ultra ATA/100) introduced LBA48, which increased the limit to 144 petabytes (PB).[4][6]

Apple Computer

The first Macintosh systems from Apple Computer to adopt an IDE hard drive instead of the long-used SCSI interface were the Quadra 630 and PowerBook 150 on July 18, 1994.[7][8] The first Macs to adopt the ATA-6 (Ultra ATA/100) implementation of IDE and overcome the 128 GB drive limit were the "Mirror Drive Doors" Power Mac G4, which was released on August 13, 2002,[9] and the Aluminum PowerBook G4 models released on January 7, 2003.[10]

Apple began transitioning to the use of SATA drives with the Power Mac G5, which was released on June 23, 2003.[11] The last devices from Apple to use an IDE (or ATA) drive were the 1st-generation Apple TV, which was released on March 21, 2007,[12] followed by the 6th-generation iPod classic on September 5, 2007.[13]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Advanced Technology Attachment at the Free On-Line Dictionary Of Computing. Accessed 2021-02-15.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 System Architecture: a look at hard drives by Paul Ackerley, Ackadia. Archived 2006-05-08.
  3. ↑ Old hardware pinouts, Handbook of hardware schemes, cables layouts and connectors old hardware pinouts. Accessed 2021-02-15.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 The Lowdown on Using CompactFlash to Replace an IDE Hard Drive by Daniel Knight, Low End Mac. 2015-02-01.
  5. ↑ IDE/ATA Interface (PDF) by QMa, Utica College. 2006-10-11.
  6. ↑ Maximum Hard Drive Size by Daniel Knight, Low End Mac. 2014-04-06.
  7. ↑ Quadra 630, Low End Mac. 1994-07-18.
  8. ↑ Apple PowerBook 150 specs, EveryMac. Accessed 2020-02-25.
  9. ↑ Apple Power Macintosh G4 867 DP (MDD) specs, EveryMac. Accessed 2020-02-25.
  10. ↑ Apple PowerBook G4 867 12" (Al) specs, EveryMac. Accessed 2020-02-25.
  11. ↑ Apple Power Macintosh G5 1.6 (PCI) specs, EveryMac. Accessed 2021-02-15.
  12. ↑ Apple TV (original/1st gen) specs, EveryMac. Accessed 2021-02-15.
  13. ↑ Apple iPod classic ("Original"/6th Gen) 80 GB, 160 GB specs, EveryMac. Accessed 2021-02-15.

External links

FOLDOC logo This page uses GFDL licensed content from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing.