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What are ATA, ATA-1, ATA-2, ATA-3,

ATA-4, ATA-5, ATA-6 and ATA-7


ATA technology is a technical specification group on IDE (Integrated Device Electronics).
Primarily, IDE is merely a hard disk interface technology aiming to integrate controller and
disk body. As the upbeat popularization of IDE/EIDE, global standardization protocol has
summarized all technical specifications since the emergence of this interface as global
hard disk standard. In this way, ATAAdvanced Technology Attachmenthas come into
existence.
--Source from http://www.powerdatarecovery.com/data-recovery/ata.html

ATA technical development


ATA has experienced several modification and upgrade with each new generation based
on former generation and keeping the backward compatibility. ATA-1, the first generation
of ATA used on Compaq desktop 386 serial as the initial standard specification, is
designed as "main/subordinate" structure serving as accessory device based on
ISA96-pin and employing 40 or 44 pin connector and wire. In 44pin scheme, the extra
4-pin supplies electricity for those devices which don't has independent power interfaces.
Besides, ATA-a simultaneously provides DMA and PIO to transmit signals. ATA-2 is also
called as EIDE (Enhanced IDE), Fast ATA or FAST ATA-2 and DMA has been fully
implemented in this edition with the standard DMA transmission speed raised from
4.16MBps of ATA-1 to 16.67MBps. Furthermore, ATA-2 also supports power management,
PCMCIA and removable devices and a maximum 8.4GB hard disk volume via the
standard addressing method CHS (Cylinder, Head and Sector). Moreover, ATA-2 has also
introduced LBA which broke through the old conception of accessing disk by CHS to lay a
fine foundation for accommodating the increasing hard disk volume in the future plus
supporting a maximum volume of 137.4GB via increasingly upgrading BIOS or third-party
software. User could find LBA or CHS setting option in CMOS as long as the computer
supports EIDE. EIDE also supports more hard disks and allows two slots on motherboard
with each slot connecting one main and one subordinate device so as to support 4 IDE
devices.
With the introduction of self-detection and monitoring and SMART technology, IDE driver
is designed and produced more reliably. ATA-3 has also added password protection
measure to control access device, offering a significant safety feature.
The most prominent two features included by ATA-4 are that ATA-4 supports Ultra DMA
and integrates ATAPI standard. ATAPI provides general interfaces for CD-ROM, tape
backup and other removable storage devices. Before this, ATAPI is a completely
independent standard. With the entrance of ATAPI, ATA-4 put an instant effect on
supporting removable medium. Meanwhile, Ultra DMA also increased the DMA

transmission rate from original 16.67MB/s to 33.33MB/s. Besides, ATA-4 added 40 pin on
the basis of previous 40pin to top 80pin all together among which the 40 pin are used to
strengthen signal quality. ATA-4 is also called as Ultra DMA, Ultra ATA or Ultra ATA-33.
Compared with ATA-4, ATA-5 has been upgraded mainly on what kind of cable that the
automatic detection device uses, 40pin or 80pin? When using 80pin cable, Ultra DMA
transmission rate will be increased to 66.67MB/s. Therefore, ATA-5 is also called as Ultra
ATA-66. Later, ATA-100/133 informal standards emerged with increase merely in speed.
However, 100/133MBps is just a symbol due to the limitation of hard disk internal
transmission speed.
ATA-1
A slot is included on ATA-1 motherboard supporting a primary device and a subordinate
device and each device allows a maximum volume of 504MB and support 3.3MB/s
transmission rate of PIO-0 mode. ATA-1 supports PIO modes of PIO0, PIO-1,PIO-2 and
four DMA modes which are not practically applied. ATA-1 interface has 5-inch hard disk
rather than current mainstream 3.5 inch.
ATA-2
ATA-2, an expansion to ATA-1, is also called as EIDE (Enhanced IDE) or Fast ATA. ATA
has been added with 2 PIO and 2DMA modes on the base of ATA, lifting the maximum
transmission rate to 16.6MB/s and breaking the 504MB limit to support maximum 8.1GB
hard disk by introducing LBA. In BIOS settings of computer supporting ATA-2, we can
always see LBA and CHS settings. Meanwhile, there are two EIDE slots on the
motherboard of EIDE interface, connecting the primary device and subordinate device
respectively. Thus, a motherboard could support EIDE devices which are generally called
as IDE1 and IDE2.
ATA-3
ATA-3 didn't introduce higher transmission speed mode and kept original speed of
16.6MB/s, but improved power management scheme by introducing simple code
protection safety scheme. Meanwhile, ATA-3 still employed an epoch-making technology the S.M.A.R.T (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology), which would monitor
head, platter, electrical machine, circuit and other hard disk components. Via detecting
monitored target with monitoring software on the host machine and detecting circuit,
operating status and history information will be compared and analyzed with default safety
value. When the safety value exceeds the acceptable range, warn would be sent to user
so as to make effective forecast over potential hard disk error and improve data storage
safety.
ATA-4
Since the standard ATA-4 interface began to support Ultra DMA data transfer mode, ATA-4
was also called Ultra DMA 33 or ATA33. Double Data Rate was first introduced on ATA
interface, enforcing interface to perform twice data transfer, one during ascending period

and another during descending period, within one clock period, which abruptly increased
the data transfer rate from 16MB/s to 33MB/8. Ultra DMA 33 also introduced another new
technology, CRC, which sends cyclic redundancy code and checks the code when the
opposite party is receiving. Only when all checks are correct will the data be received and
processed, casting strong guarantee to the safety of high-speed data transfer.
ATA-5
ATA-5, also called as "Ultra DMA 66" or "ATA66", is built on the base of Ultra DMA 33 hard
disk interface and adopts UDMA technology. Ultra DMA 66 has the receiving/sending rate
reached 66.6 MB/s, which is two times as fast as that of U-DMA/33. As working frequency
increases, EMI still arises on ATA interface. To ensure data transfer accuracy and prevent
electromagnetic interference, Ultra DMA 66 interface begins to use 80-cable with 40-pin.
40-pin is to be compatible with ATA slot and reduce cost and all cables newly increased on
80-cable are earth cables corresponding with original data lines which reduces
electromagnetic interference between neighboring signal wires.
ATA-6
ATA100 interface and data line are the same with ATA66 using 40-pin 80-core data
transfer cable and with complete downward compatibility. All devices supporting ATA33
and ATA66 can be used on ATA100 interface. ATA100 specification can easily deal with all
current thorny problems of ATA33 and ATA66. ATA100 allow hard disk external rate to
reach 100MB/s, improving hard disk data integrity and data transfer rate and considerably
improving disk subsystem performance of desktop system.
ATA-7
ATA-7 is the last interface standard of ATA also named ATA133. Only Maxtor published a
series of hard disks employing ATA133. This is the first IDE hard disk exceeding 100MB/s
in terms of interface speed. Maxtor is the only manufacturer of this hard disk currently as
other IDE hard disk manufacturers has stopped development of IDE interface but begun
developing Serial ATA interface standard hard disk instead. ATA133 supports 133MB/s
data transfer rate.

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