ATA Difference

cyborg

Can anyone please tell me the difference between ATA 33 and ATA 66??

Thanks!

Ricka182

33mb, and 66mb. The speed of the data transfer per second. Those are on the way out. There is ATA133, and also recently the arrival of Serial ATA. SATA has up to 150mb right now, with plans to go much faster in the future.

cyborg

Thanks Ricka! But how can one tell the difference physically?

w^rl0rd

You can't differentiate between them "physically," but ATA-66 requires an 80-pin cable or else it will operate at the speed of ATA-33.

Ricka182

Just to add in, serial ata or SATA, is unmistakeable. It's a thin ribbon cable, only about an 1 1/2 inches wide. I believe it is 7 pins also.

RussS

Let us not forget ATA100 either.

However, as Ricka182 mentioned, the next big thing is SATA. Currently not a lot faster than ATA133 it is expected to double that in the coming year.
I've recently built a machine with SATA and I am totally impressed. - Love the skinny cables for improving air flow - not to mention they look a whole lot tidier.

dihen

In my study for the A+ Core, I have seen practice questions asking how you can tell the difference between ATA/33 and ATA/66, and have seen both of these answers accepted as correct: 1) number of wires, and 2) cable pins out. However, I think it makes more sense that the right answer should be 'cable pins out' since like one poster said, the ATA/66 needs an 80 pin connector, and the ATA/33 uses a connector with less pins.

janmike

Believe that the ATA/66, ATA/100 uses a 40-pin/80-conductor cable. The extra conductor is used to keep a clean signal so that data will be uncorrupted.
ATA/33 uses the standard 40-pin/40-conductor cable factor(although it was first thought that the 80-wires were needed). Also, ATA/66 will run on the 40-condutor cable, but it will only run at 33MBps.

Anyway, unless standards have been changed and what my study materials say is way out of date, that's the way COMPtia sees ATA standards.

RussS

Correct janmike