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Please do not edit the discussions on this page. This page is reserved for closed discussions and issues, moved here to avoid clutter in the main talk page. If you want to re-open a discussion that has been archived, please create a new section in the main talk page. Thanks! Jeh (talk) 09:50, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


ATAPI 8

what is new in ATAPI 8 ?

Updated from draft. --Dmitry (talk •contibs ) 08:10, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Future enhancements

what are the future enhancements of ATA (unsigned comment)

See T13.org 81.2.110.250 21:42, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
In general "Wikipedia is not a crystal ball"; it describes things as they are, not how they might be in the future (after all, plans for the future can change). Jeh (talk) 09:36, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


ATA != UDMA

UDMA is a group of ATA transfer modes and thus not a synonym for ATA as claimed in the second paragraph. (130.234.5.136)

Fixed. (which you could have done, you know. ;) ) Jeh 21:03, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Use of the phrase All but

The phrase all but was used in the following context "the short cable standard all but completely elimates the use of pata for external devices" To the average person they would take that as that pata CAN be used for external devices. too many people use all but as an intensifier when really it means "everything except" . to say all but elimated means that it is NOT elimated. that it does EVERYTHING EXCEPT eliminate. COMMENTS ANYONE?

Yes, and "everything except completely eliminate" was correct, because situations in which PATA could be used for an external device are not absolutely impossible... just very unusual. In fact I have such a situation here. I've changed the graf to express this more clearly while avoiding the "all but" usage. Jeh 20:48, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Wow thanks. I appreciate you changing that without using all but. most people use that as intensifier when it is not

IDE and ATA are the same thing?

I thought ATA is a type of IDE drive/cable, not that they are the same thing, like this article says. the article on SATA says all ATA drives are IDE drives, not that they are the same thing —The preceding unsigned comment was added by The snare (talk • contribs).

I think the confusion comes from the fact that the abbreviation IDE has taken on a different meaning from the words that make it up. IDE at least in common use refers not to "integrated drive electronics" but to one particular system of connecting to integrated drive electronics. The same goes for HTML (one particular hypertext markup language, not hypertext markup languages in general) CSS (one particular system for cascading style sheets) etc. Plugwash 12:26, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
The confusion comes from the fact that IDE was never properly spec'ed out. SCSI, PATA, and SATA are all IDE implementations - therefore it is completely misleading and wrong to do as this article claims and say PATA=IDE. When I have the time, I'll get some proper references and do my best to clean this disaster up. --Riluve 05:47, 17 February 2007 (UTC)


IDE != ATA?

The article frequently suggests that IDE was an early name given to ATA, but if ATA really does stand for "AT attachment", then this can't be the case. IDE comes in two forms, a version that implements the 16 bit AT ISA bus, and an eight bit version supporting the XT bus. (I've seen this referred to as XTIDE)

I only know this because the Amiga A590 SCSI controller contained a little used implementation of the eight bit version of IDE in addition to the built-in SCSI2 interface.

IDE redirects to this page, so the distinction probably should be made clear. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 208.152.231.254 (talk • contribs) 00:19, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

IDE stands for "Integrated drive electronics", a non-standardized market name for any hard drive with built-in controller directly attached to the bus, and such drives existed many years before the official draft of ATA standard was introduced - they just used proprietary standards submitted by manufacturers, mostly Western Digital. The name reflects the fact that 16-bit AT bus attachment was the most popular choice of hard drive manufacturers until the rise of VESA Local Bus and PCI . --Dmitry (talk •contibs ) 10:33, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
ATA is a standard and IDE was the name given to a series of products, but as often happens the commercial name sticks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.227.137.159 (talk) 16:09, 6 May 2007 (UTC).


ATAPI != ATA

ATAPI is a specific form of communication across ATA for optical and other removable media drives, as noted in the article's section on ATAPI, not a synonym for ATA as the introduction claimed. Matir 15:39, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

EIDE=ATAPI?

I'd heard that IDE=ATA, and EIDE=ATAPI. Both are mentioned as being extensions for larger disk support; are they indeed synonymous terms? 70.228.77.77 03:49, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

See the section above, IDE != ATA. --Dmitry (talk •contibs ) 07:30, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
ATAPI more specifically is the ATA Packet Interface. On the whole, this article is rather sketchy. :\ —StationaryTraveller 08:16, 11 September 2006 (UTC)


What's the meaning of Ultra DMA/100, /133, etc...

The article should mention what is the meaning of "Ultra DMA/100", "Ultra DMA/133", etc. I have always assumed the number was the maximum burst throughput in megabytes per second, but I've had a surprisingly difficult time looking for the answer to this.

While discussing the throughput rate, it would also be good to mention whether the /100 or /133 (etc) burst rate makes any real-world difference, typically, with a reference to typical sustained throughput rates of today's ATA hard disks. Tempshill 19:39, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Good point. "Ultra DMA/100", etc., are unofficial names. Yes, the number is the max transfer rate on the bus in MB/sec. They're commonly used on drive boxes because it's far easier to remember that "Ultra DMA/100 means 100 MB/sec" than it is to remember that for the official name of "Ultra DMA 4." And yes, these make little difference for today's (or even tomorrow's) hard drives.
The short paragraph immediately above the "modes" table mentions this a bit. I've been thinking that that should go UNDER the "Modes" table, or at least under the heading where the table is, and that is a good place to amplify these points too. Jeh 23:45, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
... ok, done. What does anyone think? Did I get too far into opinion in dismissing STR results as not important? If you think so, you know where the "edit" button is. ;) Jeh 00:35, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
Not at all; this type of analysis is what is needed in technical Wikipedia articles. I thought the sentence "In addition, as of October 2005 no ATA hard drives exist capable of measured sustained transfer rates of above 80 MB/s, let alone higher" formed an excellent grounding for that whole discussion. Thanks! Tempshill 05:38, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Multiple devices on the cable, speed impacts

What is otherwise a quite decent article is missing any and all reference to the transfer rates of ATA devices when more than one device is connected on a data cable / port...

  • Will the transfer rate revert to the slowest device?
  • Will it revert per above only when the slower device is accessed?
  • Will that hold true for both, M/S & CS settings?
  • Will that hold true when data cable is 80-wire?

etc...

Excellent point. Does the article answer your questions now? It's a complex issue, not limited to just the actual transfer speeds. Jeh 03:03, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
   My Friend, that it's not true, article has a complete section than refers to speed impact in P-ATA devices called:
   "Two devices on one cable - speed impact"  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.49.63.206 (talk) 07:50, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Unsigned friend of the OP, the article was updated to address the point about two years ago - but at the time the question was posed, it had not yet been. Jeh (talk) 09:36, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


"Parallel ATA cables transfer data 16 or 32 bits at a time."

How can you do 32 bit transfers with only 16 data pins? Maybe the 32 bits are transfered between ATA controller and CPU/DMA controller, but i doubt you can do this on the ATA bus.

You can't. Fixed. Jeh 22:33, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
Common misconception - many drives and controllers support 32bit PIO (word 48 bit 0 in the pre-ATA spec) but this is for an optimisation on the host end permitting 32bit access cycles from the processor to the host adapter not for the cable 81.2.110.250


what is 40/80 physical connection?

Here and elsewhere I see

"The 80-wire cable provides one ground wire to each signal wire.... Though the number of wires doubled, the number of connector pins remains the same as on 40-conductor cables. The physical connectors are identical between the two cable types."

But nowhere does anyone explain how that works. Isn't anyone besides me curious? I've spent about an hour googling for a description of the 40-pin connector that magically connects very other wire in an 80-wire cable to ground. I *have* one of thesein my hand, and I may go crazy and just take it apart, thus wasting $2.50....

-- jgo / owen_bda4@yahoo.com

The purpose of an 80 wire cable is to reduce capacitive coupling, a phenomenon that occurs between wires that carry signals at high frequencies. Putting a ground wire between data wires couples the data wires to ground instead of to another data wire, reducing interference in the data carrying wires.
It would seem necessary to have an 80 pin connector for 80 wires, however, there only needs to be one ground connector pin at most, although there are several shown in the diagram, and all of the ground wires share the ground connection, (they are connected in some way inside of the connector). (unsigned comment, i cba to dig through the page history to find out whoose)
afaict its a special connector made specifically to do this extra grounding, not any kind of standard part from the electronics industry. When you standard is as widely used as ATA is you can afford to specify custom connectors to provide backwards compatibility whilst allowing a better wiring type. Plugwash 00:04, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
cleaned up the description of the 80-wire cable and the connector. Jeh 22:25, 8 October 2005 (UTC)


Parallel ATA Interface

The second paragraph needs to be rewritten or at least copyedited. The necessary changes are above my command of the english language. The problem is in the redundancy of electromagnetic induction and crosstalk (the latter is caused by the former).--Deelkar (talk) 02:13, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Done. The actual issue here is capacitive coupling, since that is more of a problem at higher freqs, just the opposite of inductive coupling. Jeh 22:33, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

master/slave terminology

In a comment imbedded in the article page, Plugwash asked:

Is it fair to say that the idea of master/slave probablly originated from the way the master is generally the boot drive and the slave is then acting as a slave to whatever the code loaded from the master decides to do ?

My response (I'm the guy who put in the "they aren't really called 'master' and 'slave'" paragraph):
That seems like quite a stretch to me. There is another hint of an origin back in the ATA-1 spec in the description of the SPSYNC (Spindle sync) interface signal (section 6.3.16). But even there, both devices could be "slaves" to a sync signal from the host controller! SPSYNC was relegated to simply "defined by the vendor" status in ATA-2 and dropped completely in ATA-3. It shared the same pin on the 40-pin connector with CSEL (cable select) and so when CSEL became more strongly recommended, SPSYNC had to go. And... shouldn't this sort of thing be in the talk page? Jeh 06:44, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
Master and slave have less to do with the OS's conception of logical devices as they do with the AT BIOS and the origins of ATA itself. ATA's register set is based directly on the old Western Digital 1003 ST-506 controller board used in the AT (and cloned by just about everyone back in the pre-ATA days), and the 1003 could either have one drive as Drive 0, or two drives as Drive 0 and Drive 1 -- you couldn't have a single drive as Drive 1, because the BIOS wouldn't boot from it (and I think IBM's own BIOS would complain about it, actually). On ATA, this setup is emulated by the drives listening to the bus (all commands are available to both drives) and seeing what the DEV bit in the Device/Head register is set to, then only interpreting commands that it expects to see based on its jumper settings. This used to be undefined behavior in a single-drive-set-to-Slave system, but later versions of ATA let you run a drive jumpered as Slave or Drive 1 by itself, with some restrictions. Also, if the drives can't agree on who has control of the bus, you've got problems, and this was a big issue back in the early days (when there were various methods of deciding if there was a slave present).
Also, SPSYNC was an artifact of the days when drives didn't have a lot of on-board cache, and synchronising the spindles actually made a difference with access times; when drives started having caches capable of holding hundreds of sectors at a time (even a 512k cache, common in the late 1990s but puny by 2005 standards, can hold 1024 512-byte sectors...), this became a lot less important, and people stopped using it. -lee 16:08, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

is cable select mandatory

in the standard for the 80 wire cables, they certainly all seem to have it in practice. Plugwash 13:09, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure. I think so... but the wording is a little vague. Jeh 20:08, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
CS is not mandatory and the pins can be used for spindle sync and other purposes. See ATA-1 documents 81.2.110.250
No, the spindle sync option disappeared when CS was introduced. Jeh (talk) 09:36, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
Hm, no, it didn't - CS was listed as optional in ATA-1. But SPSYNC was gone completely as of ATA-3. Pin 28 was then used for CSEL only. To answer the question about the cable: It's optional in the 40-conductor cable ("special cabling may be used to selectively ground CSEL"), required in the 80-conductor cable. There is no requirement that a device implement CSEL, but it must implement either CSEL or conventional address jumpers. Jeh (talk) 04:18, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Three devices on a cable?

The page says

One occasionally finds cables that allow for the connection of three ATA devices onto one IDE channel, but in this case one drive remains read-only (this type of configuration virtually never occurs).

and then someone added this comment: how is that done then?

I'd like to know that too. It seems to me that I may have seen (how's that for indefinite?) configurations like this involving some of those cheap ratty little tape drives sold for PCs. But I don't really believe it; I think I'm thinking of similar kluges on floppy cables, which I know did exist.

Whatever, such a configuration is absolutely not supported or allowed by the ATA specs.

My first impulse is to delete this reference completely, as in "no, it didn't ever happen." But I certainly haven't seen even a tiny fraction of all the nonstandard (or even all the standard) things that have been attached to PCs over the years. So... does anyone have anything more definite than a vague memory of how this worked? Since there's only one bit for "device address" in the ATA command structure I am not at all certain how this could have worked, but of course if someone has seen it working, that blows all theoretical arm-waving out of the water... Jeh 23:33, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

It could work, theoretically, by commandeering one of the unused bits in the Device/Head register, but the other drives would have to know about what you did for it to work right. This works better on floppy setups because the floppy bus has 4 device select lines. -lee 16:11, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
How does the controller indicate what drive it wants active anyway? Plugwash 23:40, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
An ATA controller works by writing binary-coded commands into registers implemented on each device. One of these is called the Device register; each device has one (and several others). Unlike in older interfaces like ST-506, there are no "device select" lines in the cable. There are bits (the CS, chip select, and DA, device address) in the wires that indicate which register is being addressed, but whatever is sent is actually written into the selected registers of both devices on the cable. The devices figure out which commands to pay attention to and which to ignore by looking at the DEV bit in the Device register. When reading from device registers, only the device whose logical address ("device 0" or "device 1") matches this bit responds. Since there is only one bit there is no obvious way to support more than two devices! Jeh 03:16, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
It seems the 40 pin version has a spare GPIO pin that has now been commondeered for detecting 80 pin cables, presumablly this could be used to drive some very simple logic that deactivated the chip select line to one of two pairs of drives. Plugwash 01:14, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
er, how, when it's already in use for the 80-wire cable detect? Anyway, no one to my knowledge ever did that. Funnily enough, I once found an "IDE cable" at Fry's that had connectors for seven devices on it. I just had to buy ot for the novelty value! It couldn't possibly work, of course! Jeh 01:31, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
7-device IDE cable - aren't these kinda cables sold so you can locate 2 drives anywhere along the length of the cable? Can be useful when you're building a PC into a non-standard case. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.193.86.112 (talk) 09:15, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Exabyte had some kind of interface nesting device on some of their hardware. Not sure how it worked but this may be what is described ? 81.2.110.250 21:44, 16 August 2007 (UTC)


It looks to me that there are two device select bits, one for device 0, one for device 1. I believe it is undefined for both bits to be active (low) at the same time. It may or may not be defined as to the effect when both are inactive (high).

Gah4 04:50, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

True, there are two select lines. CS0 and CS1, for "chip select", as these go directly to the correspondingly named pins on the interfaces on the two drives. If you know how "chip select" pins work, then you will recognize that when CSn is inactive, the output-only and I/O pins on the corresponding drive are tri-stated. If you pull both CS0 and CS1 low, both drive's interfaces will be active on the cable... and no good can come from that whether the spec says it's "undefined" or not! We *might* be able to get away with having both inactive mean "drive 2 selected"... thereby adding a third drive, but not a fourth... but I wouldn't trust my data to any such arrangement. Jeh 21:56, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

2.5-inch drives?

The 44-pin interface on 2.5-inch drives - is that ATA also? If so, what are the extra 4 pins? - Brian Kendig 23:58, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it's ATA. And you can get adapters (e.g. "laptop drive adapter") to use a 2.5-inch drive on a standard 40-pin ATA connector, or vice versa (in theory, I haven't seen one in that direction). The extra pins are for +5Vdc power and ground. Jeh 21:28, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Six IDE units

Nowadays computer motherboards generally support 4 IDE units (2 HD and 2 DVD), I use 1 for Linux and 1 for Windows, but I would prefer a 6 IDE units (4 HD and 2 DVD), to install more Linux distros without partitions. --Nopetro (talk) 08:00, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

The easy solution is to use SCSI, because the controller software usually have support to play around with discs in any matter you can dream up. BIOS is likely the most limiting factor. With S-ATA there's no real reson to be limited to finite number of discs. So you can look for a controller board that have the scsi functionality with S-ATA discs. Electron9 (talk) 15:05, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
Actually many recent chipsets (and hence motherboards) support just one PATA channel, and four or more SATA ports. I'm not sure why the BIOS would be the limiting factor in adding a SCSI controller, or a SATA controller either; no BIOS (whether on the mobo or on the add-in controller) need be involved for non-boot devices. Finally, what do you mean by "SCSI functionality with S-ATA discs"? Jeh (talk) 00:49, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
The question was regarding "install more Linux distros without partitions", booting partitions with a boot manager is no problem. However booting other discs than "primary" when several discs are available is not trivial. When you need boot functionality beyond the primary disc, problem starts. Because the BIOS paradigm is one bootdisc, rest datadiscs. SCSI controller BIOS usually handle multiple boot discs smoothly. So what is needed for S-ATA is a controller offering the same functionality, ie allowing user to select bootdisc at startup. Electron9 (talk) 07:22, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Anyway, the answer is "install or use another interface of some sort." There's no way to "expand" your existing mobo's two ATA channels to allow connection of more than four drives. No changes to the article are indicated here. Jeh (talk) 09:36, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

"Maximum disk size" values wrong

For all I know, the total number of addressable sectors was 2**28 (28 bit) from ATA-1 onwards, in both CHS and LBA mode. Which means 2**28 * 512 Byte = 128 GiB maximum disk size for all ATA specs prior to the introduction of the 48-bit extensions in ATA-6.

Quoted from the ATA-1 spec (http://www.t13.org/project/d0791r4c-ATA-1.pdf): 

7.2.3 Cylinder high register
This register contains the high order bits of the starting cylinder address
for any disk access. [...]
In LBA Mode this register contains Bits 16-23. At the end of the command,
this register is updated to reflect the current LBA Bits 16-23.
NOTE 4 - Prior to the introduction of this standard, only the lower 2 bits of
this register were valid, limiting cylinder address to 10 bits i.e., 1024
cylinders.
7.2.4 Cylinder low register
This register contains the low order 8 bits of the starting cylinder address
for any disk access. At the end of the command, this register is updated to
reflect the current cylinder number.
In LBA Mode this register contains Bits 8-15. At the end of the command, this
register is updated to reflect the current LBA Bits 8-15.
[...]
7.2.8 Drive/head register
[...]
- If L=0, HS3 through HS0 contain the binary coded address of the head to
be selected e.g., if HS3 through HS0 are 0011b, respectively, head 3
will be selected. HS3 is the most significant bit. At command
completion, these bits are updated to reflect the currently selected
head.
- If L=1, HS3 through HS0 contain bits 24-27 of the LBA. At command
completion, these bits are updated to reflect the current LBA bits
24-27.
[...]
7.2.12 Sector number register
This register contains the starting sector number for any disk data access for
the subsequent command. The sector number may be from 1 to the maximum number
of sectors per track.
In LBA Mode this register contains Bits 0-7.

There you have it. 16+4+8=28 bits for the sector addressing, meaning 128 GiB addressable space, in both CHS and LBA mode, from ATA-1 onwards. *prior to ATA-1*, there were only 10 bits for the cylinder number, giving 10+4+8=22 bits for the sector addressing and 2 GiB addressable space.

The "maximum disk size" values in the article appear to be limitations mandated by various MS-DOS and/or BIOS routines (or weird combinations of both) that were in use at one time or another. There were no such limits in the underlying ATA controllers.

Unless I'm missing something obvious here, the text should be updated. Multi io 01:29, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I just removed
ATA devices have suffered from a number of "barriers" in terms of how much data they can handle. However, new addressing systems and programming techniques have broken most of these barriers. Some of the ATA-specific barriers included: 504 MiB, ~8 GiB, ~32 GiB, and 128 GiB. A variety of other barriers have existed, usually due to device drivers and disk I/O layers in operating systems that did not correspond with ATA standards.
The paragraph below says the same thing in much better terms clearly attributing it to the PC BIOS. We still need some info on the 32 gig limit though. Plugwash 01:31, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Oh -- yes, that paragraph seems accurate. I was referring to the table in "ATA standards, versions, ...". I've corrected that one now -- 28-bit addressing from ATA-1 onwards, as the spec and the paragraph says. Right? Multi io 02:29, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Size limits reference

There's an excellent resource which provides detailed explanations of why and when a certain size limit was introduced. http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/bios/size.htm --Dmitry (talk •contibs ) 08:11, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

inconsistancy about int 13h extentions (re size limits)

the BIOS interrupt call article shows extended int13 as having 64 bits for offset and no indication of the size of the offset, the INT 13 article states "The original version of this interface supports 32-bit LBAs. Newer versions support 48-bit and 64-bit LBAs. These allow addressing of 2 TiB, 128 PiB, and 8 ZiB respectively.". Which is correct and if its the INT 13 article that is correct what are the real packet structure? Plugwash 10:45, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

  • It seems like the data packet allowed for 64-bit LBA right from the start (at least as of version 1.1 of Enhanced Disk Drive spec), but it later was altered to allow a 48-bit LBA in Enhanced Disk Drive version 2 (2004). The data structures still accept 64-bit number.--Dmitry (talk •contibs ) 10:23, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

ATA standards table inconsistent (re size limits)

ATA-1 was listed as 137 GB capable. And 28 bit LBA as introduced with ATA-2.

ATA-1 specification: 

ftp.t10.org/t13/project/d0791r4c-ATA-1.pdf

                              LBA Bits:
7.2.8  Drive/head register      27-24
7.2.3 Cylinder high register    23-16
7.2.4 Cylinder low register     15- 8
7.2.12 Sector number register    7- 0

7.2 Table 6 - Shows this with clearity

The following calculation gives the "marketing gigabytes" (228 * 512) / (109) = 137GB
I hope this makes it obvious that 137GB + 28 bit LBA was available with ATA-1. Electron9 15:21, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Moved this section to the archive, as the article does reflect this. Jeh (talk) 03:11, 24 June 2008 (UTC)


Merge with Programmed input/output and WDMA (computer)

Regarding the proposed merge with the two pages mentioned above: I agree, I think both pages should be merged into AT Attachment. 59.167.212.218 11:11, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

As far as I know, both PIO and WDMA can be used for non-AT Attachment devices, such as network adapters. I've seen references to PIO network adapters, so I fixed the PIO page to speak of them. Unless they're usable only for ATA devices, those pages should not be merged. Guy Harris 04:44, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Guy. This proposed merge is a bad idea. Jeh 20:08, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
Clarification: Upon further thought, I think the material in the WDMA (computer) article as it stands now should probably be merged here; as it is it describes only DMA modes used by ATA and there is no purpose in a separate article. The same is true of the material now in the Programmed input/output article. That is not to say that there shouldn't be a separate article on PIO in general. There is already a separate article for Direct memory access, and it is correctly general, not specific to DMA under ATA. Jeh 02:04, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
I also agree that the PIO page should remain separate. PIO has been used for years by various kinds of devices: network cards, SCSI cards, bus mice, etc. In fact, PIO easily predates IDE/ATA, going back to the early MFM and ESDI cards (I think the first IBM PC floppy interfaces even used PIO). This may need to be clarified, but it should not be merged. EJSawyer 22:22, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, but I strongly disagree. Did you actually read the "programmed input/output" page? It speaks only of PIO modes defined for ATA devices; these have nothing to do with PIO as used on any other device. Jeh 10:10, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I've read it, and I agree with your earlier assertion that the PIO page it leans too heavily on ATA. But I've worked with PCs for nearly 25 years, and PIO predates ATA by at least 5 years. Clean it up? Sure. Merge it? No, that would be a mistake. EJSawyer 18:58, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
What I'm saying is that the ATA-specific stuff from the PIO page should be merged here (most of it is already here), with a reference link to here: "For information on AT Attachment-specific PIO modes, ... "
That will leave almost nothing in the existing PIO article. Yes, wiki needs a general article on programmed I/O, but the existing article is not it -- it has approximlately ONE sentence that is not ATA-specific. btw, the original IBM PC had DMA... it was required for the floppy controller! Both PIO and DMA concepts have been around for FAR longer than the PC; I first encountered them when building interfaces for and writing drivers for them on an HP 2100. Jeh 20:11, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

( resolution: no merge. PIO article should be expanded, rewritten completely really, to describe PIO as a general I/O programming pattern, but that's for the PIO article talk page, not here. Jeh (talk) 09:36, 22 June 2008 (UTC))

Proposed that the "cable select" article be merged into this one

The Cable select article amounts to three paragraphs and mostly repeats information already available here. The wikipedia "how to" page on merging suggests four good reasons for merging a page. This qualifies under three of the four. If the "cable select" concept applied to anything but ATA that would be a different story, but it does not. Jeh 20:16, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Using cable select with this cable select compatible 40-conductor cable, a device connected to the black connector on the left side of this IDE cable is a master, a device in the middle (usually gray) is a slave, and the connector on the right (usually blue) connects to the IDE controller, most often the motherboard.
Merge. Here's a picture from that page, just in case anyone wants it again. Please note though that the text is inconsistent with the usual implementation of CS on 40-conductor cables, wherein "slave" goes at the end.

I might describe the select method used for floppy drives with a twist in the cable as a form of cable select. Otherwise, I don't know of others.

Gah4 04:56, 12 September 2007 (UTC)


( resolution: merge done. Jeh (talk) 09:36, 22 June 2008 (UTC))


Inherent design flaws

In answer to an earlier edit:

  • Equipment following the ATA4-spec or earlier is still out there.
True and you have to use the proper power off commands to shut it down and don't get enough info.
  • The cache issue with removed power is specific to ATA due that a drive will not tell controller if data has been written to platters or not. In a raid setup where the on drive write cache is not disabled may put data at risk. (something some admins swear over and manufactors obscure in fine print)
It isn't specific to ATA, its a property of having a write back cache. On a correctly implemented RAID (and file system) the journal sequencing means it is all nicely sequenced. The OS has to propogate any flush points from the OS layer down to hardware as with SCSI and anything else. 81.2.110.250 21:49, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Earlier drives does not allow overlapped requests. Only very lately have this been fixed. And many implementations still make a mess, like SiliconImage 3112A.
Mess ? SI3112A makes no mess, its simply too old to do stuff like NCQ as its a taskfile controller 81.2.110.250
  • Current specification may define electrical specification. Older is a mess. And yet many implementations do not follow sound electricial considerations anyway.
  • BIOS still does CHS. Just waiting for someone to make a mistake.
Not a bug (The drive reports geometry and the mapping is standardised and covered by EDD) 81.2.110.250
  • CRC should be mentioned with other pitfalls to have them collected in one place. Althought I let this slip.

I would like to see exactly why commands without checksum check is not an issue. When signals are 0-10..20 MHz this is not a big problem. But when signals are faster there might be issues with data integrity. There's lot's of equipment "out there" with the flaws. That might pop up when doing datarescue or upgrading servers noone bothered with until it didn't work anymore. Previous flaws also have implication on wheather how to view the soundness of feature ATA standards. If you disagree, then show in the ATA specifications where it's wrong.

Your comments about flush_cache are strange - there is no flaw here. When you issue flush_cache and get an error the sector with the error is

dropped from the cache. If you care you don't discard host side caches until you flush. As its dropped from the cache you can reissue flush cache to continue flushing the rest of the cache 81.2.110.250 Oh I may do grammar mistakes but I didn't claim to be perfect either. Electron9 23:46, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Unchecksummed signals are a problem simply because however low the bit rate the number of bits transferred is astronomical and growing at a huge rate 81.2.110.250

But, they're not. The uncheckedsummed signals are only used for the commands, not the data. Jeh 01:53, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry but I can't agree that this section belongs in the article as currently constructed. It is basically a laundry list of unstructured criticisms, and as such runs afoul of WP:CRITICISM and WP:NPOV. Wikipedia is not a place for highly pejorative and obviously non-NPOV comments on products or designs. Certainly, "People should know" is not justification for inserting such material as the second major section of the article, before any of the technical background underlying the points made has been presented! . Perhaps you could distribute the points made here throughout the article in appropriate places... and you are going to have to do some considerable writing to provide the necessary background in some of these cases. You have also yet to provide any evidence that these "inherent flaws" actually create any problems for the vast majority of users.... For now I am moving the section to near the end, and renaming it to something a little more appropriate. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jeh (talk • contribs) 02:08, August 22, 2007 (UTC).

...and making a few other changes. Jeh 03:11, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Ramu50's proposed talk page topic list

ATA = IDE confusion
---------------------
ATAPI != ATA IDE and ATA are the same thing? IDE != ATA?



PATA
---------------------
EIDE=ATAPI? Parallel ATA Interface Parallel ATA cables transfer data 16 or 32 bits at a time." PATA vs. SATA use widespreadness



Master / Slave
---------------------
master/slave terminology Six IDE units



Future
---------------------
Future enhancements ATAPI 8



Answer is in Revolution
---------------------
ATA standards table inconsistent



FAQ
---------------------
What's the meaning of Ultra DMA/100, /133, etc... Compatibility (DO NOT PUT "Improve this article" template, this is not a forum / FAQ)




SATA
---------------------
comparing IDE/ATA speed with others


Totally irrelevant
---------------------
ATA != UDMA Merge with Programmed input/output and WDMA (computer) -PIO and WDMA are totally different interface (they are in different stage of history, not appropriate)


Uncategorized
Suggested fix for picture of cables
HPA/DCO
Show Proof
-inconsistancy about int 13h extentions
Questsions
what is 40/80 physical connection?
is cable select mandatory
Three devices on a cable?
"Maximum disk size" values wrong
2.5-inch drives?
Missing in article
ATA standards versions, transfer rates, and features
Proposed that the "cable select" article be merged into this one
Use of the phrase All but
Apparent error in the "cable select" section.
Inherent design flaws
windows limitations
Compatability between types
size limits
Passwords / security



--Ramu50 (talk) 21:57, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

(Moved to archive page, as the reorg is done, though not following this outline Jeh (talk) 22:15, 22 June 2008 (UTC) )


Requested move

(really, requested revert of move)

Background and status

This article was originally (and for quite some time) named "AT Attachment".

User The Anome (talk) moved it (without any discussion) to "Advanced Technology Attachment", its present name, with the justification given in the next subsection. My response describing my arguments for moving it back to "AT Attachment" follow his comments. Jeh (talk) 03:24, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

ReorganizationFormatting of this section: Since some of the threads here have gone on for a while, I have created subsections for the thread started by each user inserted subsection headings in front of the first entry by each user who has contributed to this discussion. In some cases opinions on the issue were on users' talk pages and I have copied them here (with links to diffs to establish authorship).

The current status of the discussion appears to me to be: No consensus for requested new name ("AT Attachment") but there is less consensus (if such a concept even exists :) ) for the current name, i.e. for the recent move from AT Attachment to the current name, "Advanced Technology Attachment":

Support for renaming back to "AT Attachment": jeh, Tom94022, Frnknstn

"AT attachment": Iterator12n

Support for keeping "Advanced Technology Attachment": The Anome (but also suggested an alternative), Electron9

Support for something else: The Anome ("Advanced Technology Attachment with Packet Interface" as an alternative to the present "Advanced Technology Attachment"), Ramu50 ("IDE")

If you have an opinion on this, please contribute. And of course please sign with ~~~~

The Anome

"AT Attachment" is not a good name for this article, since it's neither the common usage, nor the official name.

The Wikipedia naming convention is that we should in general use the common name of a thing as its article title, or, if there is sufficiently good reason, or a class exception to the general rule, the official name.

For example, the article on North Korea should either be called North Korea (which is the name almost universally used by others), or Democratic People's Republic of Korea (the full official name of the country in English). "DPR Korea" would not be a good name, since it is neither.

Thus, we should either call the ATA article "Advanced Technology Attachment" (common name), or "AT Attachment with Packet Interface" (official name). Even though it's officially incorrect, almost everyone reads ATA as meaning Advanced Technology Attachment -- not unreasonably, since "AT" originally stood for "Advanced Technology". I believe the article should stay with that name, according to Wikipedia policy.

To try to clarify this, I've now started the intro in the article with: "AT Attachment with Packet Interface, commonly known as Advanced Technology Attachment (ATA)..." -- The Anome (talk) 08:36, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I do not believe that is correct. "AT Attachment" (Google: 173,000 hits) seems to me to be far more common than "Advanced Technology Attachment" (61,000 hits). This is also my personal experience, not that that means anything.
Ok, I have to confess that I made a stupid error regarding the Google search. Since Google does not preserve case "AT attachment" produces a large number of false hits. However "Advanced technology attachment" is pretty darn specific. "AT attachment" while excluding "drive", "interface", and "cable" yields 124,000 hits. I propose that the difference between this number and the previous number (246,000) gives a decent approximation to the pages using "AT attachment" in the way we're interested here: 122,000. "Advanced technology attachment" with these same exclusions yields only 5270 hits, leaving 58,000 hits by the same rules. So "AT attachment" still wins, by two to one instead of three. I'd be interested in seeing what results others find from other searches. Jeh (talk) 05:50, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Furthermore the term "AT Attachment Interface" (note, without the "packet interface" part - more on this in a moment) occurs in many places in the spec document. The term "advanced technology" appears nowhere.
I think most people will use "ATA" in preference to either of these. (Google for "ATA drive": 246,000; "ATA interface", 417,000; and there are many others; of course there is overlap.) But "ATA" would not be a good name for the article as it is imprecise (there are many other things abbreviated "ATA").
I believe this leaves us with "AT Attachment" as the best compromise between correctness and common usage. It is also the name this article had for many years with no complaints.
I'm afraid you have introduced further confusion and error regarding "ATAPI". The full title of the specification document is e.g. "AT Attachment with Packet Interface - 6 (ATA/ATAPI-6)", but that does not mean that "ATAPI" may be used to refer to the entire specification, as you have done in at least one place in your recent edits.
The formal "short name" for the entire spec is "ATA/ATAPI-6" (the 6 is the version number). Note that the "ATA" part is not omitted, even though it seems redundant. "ATAPI" by itself does not provide what in the OSI model we would call the physical and data link layers; in "ATA/ATAPI" devices, the ATAPI commands and responses are sent and received via the ATA interface and protocol.
The spec describes the ATA physical interface, signaling protocol, and ATA commands and responses. An ATA hard drive uses only this portion of the spec. The spec also describes the "packet interface" protocol used by ATAPI devices to send and receive SCSI commands and responses over the ATA interface.
So... any ATAPI device (such as a DVD-ROM drive) that uses the "ATA" 40-pin connector and interface described here is also an ATA device - you can't officially call it just "ATAPI" even though that is very common. Technically it's an "ATA/ATAPI" device.
On the other hand an ATA hard drive is most emphatically not an ATAPI device.
Therefore using the term "ATAPI" as if to refer to the entire spec is incorrect. Writing out "AT Attachment with Packet Interface" as if to refer to the entire spec would be correct, but misleading.
I will try to come up with a reasonably succint way to explain all of these points and bring the whole article into alignment with these usages, pending further discussion here.Jeh (talk) 22:27, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Ok, I have done that, but I still think we need to move the page back to "AT Attachment". According to WP:Requested moves this should be treated as a controversial move (since it was recently moved in good faith, etc.) so I am following the procedure given there.
Does anyone else have any comments about the name? Jeh (talk) 03:24, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

The OSI model that I mention was an example for the broadcasting infrastructure network, which is only a reference and has no relevance to ATAPI.(I never stated that ATAPI used it, read carefuly before you start posting nonsense.) --Ramu50 (talk) 21:26, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Ramu, my mention of OSI was in response to The Anome's comments, not to yours. Jeh (talk) 06:26, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

User The Anome (talk), who renamed it from "AT Attachment" to "Advanced Technology Attachment" in the first place, has said renaming it to "AT Attachment with Packet Interface" is "fine with me" (him): [[1]]. To me this is better than "Advanced Technology Attachment" but worse than "AT Attachment". Jeh (talk) 06:36, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Electron9

I think the article on "ATA" should be named 'Advanced Technology Attachment' and the reason for that is that almost all other technical terms are expanded to their full meaning to avoid future name collisions when new acronyms becomes established. ATA/AT attachment etc.. is just redirect linked to the article with fully expanded name. If there comes a new technology like "Arbitration Test Attachment".. should that also be named "AT Attachment" ..?.. *problem*. Electron9 (talk) 10:35, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

But "Advanced Technology..." is not the "full meaning" of "AT Attachment". It is just "AT Attachment". Jeh (talk) 06:26, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Also beware of using google or any other search engine as a reference. It's all to easy to get suckered into 1000 flies can't be wrong, shit must be good ;-) Electron9 (talk) 10:35, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm assuming the spec can't be wrong about its own name. Jeh (talk) 06:26, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I also see ATAPI as extension to the original 'Advanced Technology Attachment' specification. Note that I do not call ATA a standard. Because ATA has always been a royal mess in all aspects. Electron9 (talk) 10:35, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Again, "Advanced Technology Attachment" isn't the "full meaning." It's never spelled out that way in the dcouments. Not even in version 1. It's always been just "AT Attachment". So that is the fully expanded name. But... thank you for your input. Jeh (talk) 17:47, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Tom94022

User Tom94022 writes (on my talk page, User talk:Jeh) [[2]]

FWIW the T13 committee home page begins "Technical Committee T13 is responsible for all interface standards relating to the popular AT Attachment (ATA) storage interface utilized as the disk drive interface on most personal and mobile computers today." so the article probably should be "AT Attachment" and not "Advanced Technology Attachment." While version 7 of specification is "AT Attachment with Packet Interface," historically it hasn't always been so and it looks like it will revert to "AT Attachment" in version 8. I think most people will better understand AT Attachment (ATA) as the article title and we should drop "with Packet Interface" except where relevant. JEH, BTW see my other comments on my talk page Tom94022 (talk) 17:29, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

JEH, thanks for posting my talk - Just to make my position clear, the page should be reverted to AT Attachment title. Advanced Technology is just plain wrong. Tom94022 (talk) 21:27, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Ramu50

How about just renaming to IDE specification and redirect Advanced Technology Attachement, ATA and ATAPI to IDE specification. We can explain what is ATA (the cable), AT(cable material), ATA(specification), ATAPI. --Ramu50 (talk) 21:26, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Renaming to "IDE" is not an option in this discussion. Once this question (rename back to "AT Attachment", or not) is resolved, you can bring that up as a proposed rename if you like. Jeh (talk) 06:26, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
But "Advanced Technology..." is not the "full meaning" of "AT Attachment". It is just 
"AT  Attachment". Jeh (talk) 06:26, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

You are wrong Jeh, at the time period when IDE HDD was invented it can be considered. Actually Advanced Technology, ATA or Advanced Technology Attachment is synonymous to each other. --Ramu50 (talk) 22:06, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

No, I am not wrong. At the time the ATA standard was first created it was called "AT Attachment". Not "Advanced Technology Attachment". Download the various versions of the spec for yourself and see. In fact the word "advanced" does not even appear in the ATA-1 spec, let alone "advanced technology"! Whether or not it was actually considered considered "advanced technology" as a descriptive term (as opposed to being named that, which it decidedly was not) at the time is a different question, not relevant to the name of the page. But that question would probably be answered "no": It was not particularly "advanced," since SCSI already existed and SCSI was considerably more advance: SCSI had, for example, DMA capabilities before ATA existed, and years before ATA's DMA mode existed. Jeh (talk) 07:07, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
Again, "Advanced Technology Attachment" isn't the "full meaning." It's never spelled 
out that  way in the dcouments Jeh (talk) 
06:26, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Says by who --Ramu50 (talk) 22:06, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Says the specification documents, all the way back to version 1. Jeh (talk) 07:07, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

By the way, which website is the official specifications, I am getting confused after searching numerous websites. --Ramu50 (talk) 22:06, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

www.t13.org . For the specs themselves, see the "FTP" button in the left column. Jeh (talk) 07:07, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

The reason why ATAPI was not used until UDMA came out was because of the reason (Note: I wrote days last week, was thinking of posting it, but still not quite sure). -- Ramu50 (talk) 22:06, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't know what you were trying to say here, but I will say again: ATAPI and UDMA really have nothing to do with each other. In particular an ATAPI device can work just fine (although slowly, of course) using PIO modes. Jeh (talk) 07:07, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I really believe that we should name it to IDE Device, because there is a lot of problem regarding ATAPI. ATAPI (AT Attachment Packet Interface)-there is quite a confusion in the word “packet,” because initially packet is describe compress form of data (since military require communication, packet was generally accepted as a compress data) --Ramu50 (talk) 22:06, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

No. "Packets" in this context have utterly nothing to do with compressing data. If you're thinking of "packet radio" (used in ham radio, btw, as well as in military comms), that was developed long after the use of packets in computer communications, and doesn't necessarily compress anything either. Please read Packet (information technology). You will find that compression is incidental to the packet concept. Jeh (talk) 07:07, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

However, it is also very controversial that whether or not AT uses packet or not.--Ramu50 (talk) 22:06, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

The spec doesn't think it's controversial at all. It's very unequivocal about the matter. Jeh (talk) 07:07, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

You'll have to know the actually instruction code to determine if they uses. So I think this is probably what the INCITS committee came up (a prediction)

Packet---compress data (for processor request through Southbridge) Packet---contain compress data or thread only 　　　(if on-board 48 bit LBA or built-in ECHS exists on the HDD) ATAPI-6 http://en.kioskea.net/pc/ide-ata.php3 Packet---contains data only, due to management software or some form of interpreter existence

If contain header, then it is for SANs not consumer product (because nowadays they are still insufficient understanding of how storage management really works, placing a specification wouldn't be wise, because DBMS is still being mapped out) and they are currently absoultely no understanding or any explanation as to why Connectivity such as JDBC or ODBC results in faster speed performance. -initially ANSI was going to place specification on IRQ, but it didn’t happen, because unprecedented of header were found. I predicited this, because in Pentium 4 systems, almost all computers avaliable IRQ are quite synonymous to each other Packet---contain binary header (IRQ) Packet---contain MAC address (for network packet)

Packet---contain loosely instruction code, for Southbridge to process (the simplest processing can be achieve the same way as the first Pong game console architecture (most people called it discrete form of processor, even though it is accepted, but everybody knows it is not the best term, because discrete of processor has a connotation of copying of processor). However, processor didn't exists at that stage of history, therefore you shouldn't accuse people of wrongdoings for the things they never done.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--Ramu50 (talk) 22:06, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


What the T13 committee came up with is what's in the spec: Packets in ATAPI are used for encapsulation. Not for compression. There are "headers" in the packets because these packets carry SCSI commands and responses and SCSI commands and responses have headers. There isn't any doubt or ambiguity about it, no need to try to "predict" anything. Jeh (talk) 07:07, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


Questions, why does Wikipedia force me that I have to use br tags = =

I suppose because the automatic formatting rules that apply to talk pages do not take into account the way you would like your text to appear. Would you mind trying to conform to the standards of talk pages? It would make things much easier. Jeh (talk) 07:07, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Jeh arguments and ramu50 is moved to Jeh's user page discussion. --Ramu50 (talk) 21:11, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

No, they're not. Jeh (talk) 02:36, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Jeh, do you mind stop being an asshole. Stop using the discussion as your own page, I deleted your testing section.--Ramu50 (talk) 22:06, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I put that "testing" section there as a demonstration to the IP user who complained about the page reorg that "new section" wouldn't work. This has nothing to do with "using the discussion as my own page". Jeh (talk) 07:07, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
This article was originally (and for quite some time) named "AT Attachment". User The Anome 
(talk) moved it to "Advanced Technology Attachment", its present name, with the following 
justification. My response describing my arguments

Wikipedia is a user friendly page Encycloepdia, stop posting things as if you are bias on a user, you make everything sound like as if you want to post a legal threat. Who the hell cares it was originally named, people don't stupid things, just because you don't understand what other is thinking doesn't mean you are king. They understand their common sense, stating it that was originally named seems to be is more accusing ones' wrongdoing, what did you contribute to this discussion? --Ramu50 (talk) 22:15, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I am proceeding with the formal procedure for a possibly contested rename—even though this is simply a revert of a previous rename that was not done through the formal procedure; I feel that going through the procedure will add legitimacy and permanence to the final decision, whatever it is. The Anome (talk) is fully aware of this process and of my text. He apparently does not think there's a problem with any of this; we had a perfectly civil exchange on his talk page. So I don't know why you're taking so much offense on his behalf. The material you quoted is there for information for newcomers to the discussion, and it is factual. Jeh (talk) 07:07, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
One might care what it was originally named because this shows that the name "AT Attachment" is not a new name we're trying to apply now, but the long-standing name of the page for several years. Given that, I do not believe that the rename to "Advanced Technology Attachment" should have been done without at least some discussion. The history provides background for that opinion. You are free to disagree with that opinion, but the facts remain as they are. Jeh (talk) 07:07, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
And speaking of formal procedures - and "user friendly" - several times now you have engaged in ad hominem attacks against me. Please review WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF. I am being civil with you; please reciprocate. Please do not take personal offense (or think that I am trying to provoke such a response when I point out that you have posted wrong information; it is not meant that way. I'm not saying anything about you personally, only about things you currently think you know that are not so. Fortunately you can easily learn better, but you will have to first admit that you have been mistaken, and second, make the effort to put aside your preconceived notions and do the necessary research. Actually downloading and reading the specs you're trying to write about would be an excellent start. Jeh (talk) 07:07, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually this is the only attack I done in Wikipedia, because you are being illegitimate. You and Anome (2 users doesn't represent a person idea), you guys DIDN'T openly discussed, you guys did the action without user agreement. So what if I openly attack, you are not being legitimate, so why should anyone be respecting you. Also both of us didn't give any facts of evidence at all, so you don't have more authortiy over other users, be mature idoit. --Ramu50 (talk) 16:02, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

How exactly am I being illegitimate by proposing a change and starting a discussion? How is this not an open discussion? I think TheAnome should have done the same, but that he did not does not make his action "illegitimate" either; he simply assumed there would be no objection. I have provided a large number of references to the true history of the names in the main article. No, I have no authority over other users—however, regarding personal attacks, I am following the rules under WP:CIVIL and WP:TALK while you are not. Please do not continue in this manner. Jeh (talk) 17:00, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Your illegimiacy includes the following

  • personal discussion between 2 users doesn't represent the majority decision
  • providing facts that doesn't have links, when resource is avaliable is not accepted in Wikipedia. Wikipedia require you to either cite it or link it. ATA 4 was clearly avaliable.
  • attitude towards other users as if posing a legal threat is not accepted, deal the legal system yourself. This includes implying a synonymous statement that is accusing a user' s wrongdoings without proof.

Change it! --Ramu50 (talk) 21:19, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

1. To recite the history yet again - I created a move proposal at WP:RM and in accordance with the guidelines I created a corresponding discussion page at talk:Advanced Technology Attachment#Requested move. As it says in the template at the top of that page, that section is for "discussion." To get the discussion started I related the history behind the proposal. My discussion with user The Anome was part of that history.

I never said that it "represented the majority decision," nor said anything that could be interpreted that way. I invited discussion, meaning that the question was still open (and so it remains). Any sense that I am purporting to "represent the majority decision" is, as far as I can tell, purely your interpretation.

Indeed, if I thought that my discussion with The Anome represented a "decision" I simply would have renamed the page back to "AT Attachment". The fact that I did not do so, but created a move proposal and set up the discussion section instead, belies your entire premise.

Exactly what did I say that you interpreted as saying I was promoting The Anome and my discussion as a "majority decision"?

2. The references you're talking about (to the ATA specs) were in the main article all the time. I've added more since then that document the history of IDE and ATA, per your request - you are therefore in a very poor position to claim I'm providing unreferenced information. To refresh your memory, here is the statement in question: 

Furthermore the term "AT Attachment Interface" (note, without the 
"packet interface" part - more on this in a moment) occurs in many 
places in the spec document. The term "advanced technology" appears 
nowhere.

See? It says "in the spec document" and the specs are linked from the main page. They've been linked from the main page all along. That is all the "reference" that is required in this case. Nevertheless I added more references from the main page that provided further documentation for the history of the names.

Exactly how can you claim that MY claim (quoted above) was unreferenced, when I referenced the spec, and the specs have long been linked from the article page? How can you continue to claim this when I have since provided more references? And how can you maintain such a position while providing no references at all in support of your views? Particularly your recent addition to the article page?

3. I have no idea what you mean by "as if posing a legal threat". If you mean the things I wrote regarding the rename, I have addressed that already above. If you mean something else, what is it? Please be specific. Jeh (talk) 01:40, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

(above text, starting from Ramu50's edit of 21:11, 27 June 2008 (UTC), moved back here from my talk page, by me. Ramu50 had moved it there, minus my edit of 01:40 28 Jun. I was going to continue that thread there, but I've changed my mind; Ramu50 has no right to dictate that a discussion be moved from this page. Ramu50: please note that moving things from article talk pages, other than for archiving purposes, goes against WP guidelines -- see WP:TALK. Jeh (talk) 02:36, 29 June 2008 (UTC) )

Frnknstn

All the arguing about procedure in the world won't resolve this issue. ATA is the AT Attachment; the attachment for the AT computer. Expanding the acronym is not nessisary, and wrong in my opinion (unless we also expand AT (form factor) to 'Advanced Technology (form factor). ATAPI is also clearly out, as it does not refer the the topic as a whole. I support renaming this page to 'AT Attachment'. Frnknstn (talk) 12:16, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

jeh

My position is simple. The actual name is "AT Attachment". Some intermediate versions of the documents have been called "AT Attachment with Packet Interface" but that is the document title; the standard (or spec or whatever it is) is referred to within the document as simply "AT Attachment". It is never spelled out as "Advanced Technology". So the original article title ("AT Attachment") was and remains the correct one. Those who type "advanced technology attachment" will be served by a redirect as they were before. "ATA" of course goes to a disambiguation page. Jeh (talk) 01:50, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

My opinion is that the conclusion here is that:

- as the move to the current name, "Advanced Technology Attachment" was not discussed, and

- after discussion there is no consensus for the current name, and

- there is support for the original name from the defining authority on the topic, the T13 committee,

Therefore the move should be reverted, the article should be moved back to "AT Attachment", with a redirect from "Advanced Technology Attachment". However since "AT Attachment" is now a redirect page with more than one item in its history this will require admin assistance. Thank you. Jeh (talk) 02:52, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Iterator12n

Considering all of the above, and WP:MOS in particular, the article should be titled "Advanced technology attachment," with only one capital. The abbreviations AT and ATA may be introduced in the article's leader. -- Iterator12n Talk 03:47, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

But it's not an "abbreviation"! "AT Attachment" is the actual name! ...oh well. Jeh (talk) 03:50, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
From WP:MOS: "The first letter of the first word, letters in acronyms, and the first letter of each word of a proper noun are capitalized; all other letters are in lower case." Proper nouns! We can talk about AT, maybe, but "attachment" certainly is not a proper noun. Cheers, I'm out of here. -- Iterator12n Talk 03:57, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
Ah, ok. I wasn't considering the capitalization issue at all. "AT attachment", then? But it's moot; an admin has decided there was no agreement, so has declined the request. Jeh (talk) 04:06, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
FWIW, AT attachment it is, were it not for admins - they need better training in policies and guidelines, LOL. As said, I'm out of here. -- Iterator12n Talk 04:27, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
On third thought I take it back. "AT Attachment" is the name of the specification being described. You can't call the article "AT attachment" any more than you would call the article about Tolstoy's famous book "War and peace". Still moot unless I can appeal the admin decision. Jeh (talk) 15:35, 22 July 2008 (UTC)


HPA/DCO

It might be nice to see at least some mention of the HPA and DCO features added in later ATA revisions. -- TDM 13:58, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Does someone know the meaning of these acronyms ..? , and their more specific context. Electron9 06:33, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Host Protected Area and Device Configuration Overlay are features which allow one to hide areas of the physical disk from the operating system (and in the case of DCO, hide device features). I'm not an expert on these things and would love to see detailed articles on them. I see that HPA is now a separate article and is linked to, so that's a good start. DCO is newer and more mysterious and could definitely use more exposure. TDM 14:13, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
DCO now seems to have an article as well. Both should be mentioned and linked from this article. Jeh (talk) 07:27, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Compatability between types

I have a laptop with an ATA-4 hard drive. I would like to place a drive with an ATA-6 inside instead. Is that possible? Thanks! Toddmehl 22:38, 29 July 2007 (UTC))

Yes. However, assuming that the laptop's interface is ATA-4, your new drive will run no faster than ATA-4 allows and it will be subject to other ATA-4 limitations. A laptop old enough to have an ATA-4 interface may have BIOS issues preventing the use of larger drives, too. We should probably make this clear in the article. Jeh (talk) 04:06, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Compatibility

I learned today that at least for 2.5" laptop drives, EIDE is incompatible with SATA, despite apparently being a different version of the same protocol. Could someone explain, in general, which of the protocols in the table are compatible with which others (in either direction)? -- Beland 23:18, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

And for 3.5" drives too. What is commonly called an IDE or EIDE drive uses a parallel interface. SATA is a serial interface. They are not electrically compatible, even though the commands and responses carried over the interface are the same. Jeh (talk) 09:36, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

PATA vs. SATA use widespreadness

The page says, about PATA that "[i]t provides the most common and the least expensive interface for this application". In light of motherboards sold currently (08/2007) and introduced in the past year, I'd say this is no longer true. Most of the motherboards sport only a single PATA connector, meant for DVD drive, and hard drives are expected to be attached to the SATA connectors. Also PATA versions of new drives have for some time been a bit harder to come by, and often a bit more expensive, or at least equal in price to SATA ones.

Thus I propose we'd change the page to reflect this. Something like "From 199x all the way to 2006 it provided the most common and least expensive.." Zds 11:15, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

P-ATA was in use before 199x. Also P-ATA will proberbly be used by embedded products for a long time. Since S-ATA interfaces are hard to find in a single chip (S-ATA PHY). Electron9 22:56, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Addressed. What do you think now? Jeh (talk) 07:41, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
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