IDE Cable and 80 Conductor Cable --- difference?

[IntelSux]

I was just wondering what the difference is between a regular hard drive IDE cable and a "80 conductor cable", as my BIOS calls it.

if I look at them closely, the conductor cables have more wires, although they the same ammount of connectors.. so what is the difference? my hard drives work when connected to either one.

also I only have two of them but my KG7-Raid has a total of four controlles so I'm short two.. I used normal IDE cables for my future raid array... will that mess up my hard drives in the long run?

somone please educate me


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AMD or Intel? I choose AMD. After all, something is better than nothing.
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AMD Athlon T-Bird 1400 mhz
Thermalright SK6 + ASII
Abit KG7-RAID
Asus V8200 Deluxe (Geforce 3 w/ TV in, TV out, 3d glasses)
Generic sound card soon to be replaced
1024MB Generic PC2100 DDR SDRAM
Maxtor 80 gig HD
two Western Digital 45 gig HDs (total disk space: 170 gigs)
Tornado 1005 Case
3DMark 2000 Score: 11392
3DMark 2001 Score: 6915

[gotmonopoly?]

Regular IDE cables for ATA/33 are 40 pin 40 conductor cables for old IDE hard drives, DVD/CD drives, CDRW drives and some tape backup units which only utilize 40 wires.

However today's current crop of IDE hard drives use 80 wire cables which although use 40 pins can take advantage of the double throughput of an 80 wire cable. They are in fact figuring out ways to quadruple the throughput with ATA/133 coming out soon. Right now all 80 conductor cables are useless for CD devices. Only hard drives use them as they should be used. I do believe ATA/133 can run over regular 80 wire cables like ATA/100 can.

[Adisharr]

Originally posted by gotmonopoly?:
Regular IDE cables for ATA/33 are 40 pin 40 conductor cables for old IDE hard drives, DVD/CD drives, CDRW drives and some tape backup units which only utilize 40 wires.

However today's current crop of IDE hard drives use 80 wire cables which although use 40 pins can take advantage of the double throughput of an 80 wire cable. They are in fact figuring out ways to quadruple the throughput with ATA/133 coming out soon. Right now all 80 conductor cables are useless for CD devices. Only hard drives use them as they should be used. I do believe ATA/133 can run over regular 80 wire cables like ATA/100 can.

The extra wires are nothing more than additional ground wires for shielding. There is no extra data being passed - only at higher rate..



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- You can milk anything with nipples -

[al bundy]

Originally posted by IntelSux:
I was just wondering what the difference is between a regular hard drive IDE cable and a "80 conductor cable", as my BIOS calls it.

if I look at them closely, the conductor cables have more wires, although they the same ammount of connectors.. so what is the difference? my hard drives work when connected to either one.

also I only have two of them but my KG7-Raid has a total of four controlles so I'm short two.. I used normal IDE cables for my future raid array... will that mess up my hard drives in the long run?

somone please educate me

The 80-wire cables allow for the newer and faster ATA-66 or ATA-100 data transfer speeds, for those drives that can actually transfer data those faster speeds. The older 40-wire cables only allow for max transfer speeds of ATA-33.

No, using the 40-wire cables will not mess up your hard drives (or your RAID array), but the individual drives just won't be able to transfer data faster than ATA-33 speed - even if they are capable of the faster transfer speeds.

Edit: One more thing, using an 80-wire cable will ensure that the 'Cable Select' jumper setting will work on your IDE drives. Not all the older 40-wire cables would support Cable Select.

[This message has been edited by al bundy (edited September 07, 2001).]

[Adisharr]

Originally posted by al bundy:


Edit: One more thing, using an 80-wire cable will ensure that the 'Cable Select' jumper setting will work on your IDE drives. Not all the older 40-wire cables would support Cable Select.

That's good to know.. Seems that's a hot topic these days

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- You can milk anything with nipples -

[IntelSux]

wow. cool. now I know..
thanks a lot everyone. I bow down to you all.

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==================
AMD or Intel? I choose AMD. After all, something is better than nothing.
------------------
AMD Athlon T-Bird 1400 mhz
Thermalright SK6 + ASII
Abit KG7-RAID
Asus V8200 Deluxe (Geforce 3 w/ TV in, TV out, 3d glasses)
Generic sound card soon to be replaced
1024MB Generic PC2100 DDR SDRAM
Maxtor 80 gig HD
two Western Digital 45 gig HDs (total disk space: 170 gigs)
Tornado 1005 Case
3DMark 2000 Score: 11392
3DMark 2001 Score: 6915