whats the difference between a SATA/IDE hard disk and an ATA/IDE hard disk?

Question

Looked on the internet but get more confused the more I read. Any answers without being too technical?
Thanks.

Answer 1

SATA stands for serial ATA, which is a fairly new interface found on newer motherboards.

Plain old ATA, sometimes called parallel ATA, is another term for the older IDE interface, which has been around for many years.

What you need to keep in mind is that you can only use the type of hard drive which matches your motherboard. If your system has a regular IDE connecter, you need a regular ATA drive. If you machine has the SATA connector, you need a SATA drive.

The newer interface supports faster throughput, easier recognition of multiple drives and greater reliability, but none of that is really important from the average end-user's standpoint.

IDE and ATA are essentially different abbreviations for the same thing.

Answer 2

SATA has the potential for faster data transfer but that does not mean that all current SATA drives are quicker than EIDE .
An obvious exception being the fantastic Western Digital Raptor drives (SATA)
SATA data cables are also less reliable connections and more likely to become loose or disconnected when disturbed than the good old ribbon connectors.
Some (not all) mainboards now support 'Hot-Plug' SATA meaning devices can be connected/disconnected while powered up.
The inherent problem with SATA is the fact that the drive's internal bandwidths are MUCH slower than external controller capabilities (at the moment at least) so the drive doesn't fully make use of the improved bandwith offered by SATA much less so SATA-2.
In the real world, there is no real noticeable speed difference between the two standards YET, but it's a developing technology so the gulf will widen between SATA & IDE.

Answer 3

Also....

Serial ATA is much quicker than EIDE (Extended Integrated Drive Electronics).

ATA is AT attachment (meaning it's attached to the Motherboard vs being a card you need to attach).

IDE was introduced in 1989. Prior to that, you had to buy a special card to attach Hard Drives to the AT PC.

Serial ATA (or SATA) had been developed only in the last couple of years, but it allows HDD (Hard Disk Drive) to reach 120 GB and larger, and work at faster speeds than IDE HDD's.

Serial has been part of Computer with the very first computers. Serial allows only 1 bit at a time to travel. But, with todays' advancements, this bit can be "piped" through much faster than the older serial devices (such as modems, original mice, etc).

IDE (as was mentioned in the first answer) is parallel, which allows more bytes to travel.

Think of the path of travel this way. Serial is a one lane highway. Parallel is an eight lane highway.

It may seem backwards that Serial ATA is faster than IDE (parallel), but with electronics, you can create different ways for data to move.

Answer 4

cman is completly correct but one thing,the main difference is the transfer rate. sata is way faster than ata/ide and nicer looking, oh yeah i build a lot of computers and one problem i have been seeing on some motherboards is when you are booting a new system to install windows some motherboards cant boot off sata which is lame and the only way to tell is in the mobo's manual so unless you are building with a very, very nice motherboard try to call the manufacter first, good luck.

Answer 5

eventually, serial ATA will probably overtake IDE as the main device interface because it is much more powerful but not for a while yet

Answer 6

sata is faster

Answer 7

see http://www.lsilogic.com/technologies/industry_standards/sata_ata_technology.html

Answer 8

an "S"