ATA/100 Cable Using CAT-5E

[Greebe]

Do you really need an ATA/100 cable way longer than any you can find anywhere?

Is that 18" ATA/100 cable that came with your motherboard too short to reach the top drive bay in you "Mega-Gargantuan Monster Tower" system case?

Are you masochistic and prone to self-abuse?

Oh heck YA! (sorry, couldn't contain myself!

Then you MAY have what it takes to start and complete an ATA/100 Cable Using CAT-5E and standard 40-pin IDC connectors to really extend the distance between your hard disk drive(s) and your IDE connector.

Cool read!

[Jammrock]

That's pretty cool. With a rig like that you could make an external IDE RAID using some modified SCSI cases and an IDE RAID controller. That would be pretty darn cool, and a lot cheaper than SCSI.

Maybe someday someone will manufacture those style of cables so lazy people can use them =)

Jammrock

[SteveC]

Cool! Although it would be a LOT easier to make a ATA/33 cable

[Technoid]

How's the progress on "SATA" (Serial-ATA) ?

[dancray]

I heard that there was NO difference using an ata-66 cable on an ata-100 hd. On the storage review web site I saw this info, they said that because harddrives had not surpassed certain max-burst rates, an ata-100 cable does not improve performance at all. I supposefor that matter an ata100 mobo was not even necessary, ata-100 harddrive ran just as fast using ata-66 connectors.

go figure, eh.

[Gurm]

Dancray,

I'm not surprised... since I have never heard of, much less seen, an "ata-100 cable". ATA-100 drives use ATA-66 cables. Always have.

- Gurm

[Guru]

Hello!!!!!!!!!!! And the cable took how long to make?????? You know they sell ata-66 cabels on 100m rolls!

[Wulfman]

perhaps...

The ATA/66 and ATA/100 standards specify an 18" MAX length for the cable (among many other apparently arbitrary specifications). While you might get away with making a ribbon cable somewhat longer without any noticeable performance loss, errors, or heaven forbid.... data loss, you will quite likely run into trouble if you go too long, or try to make it a long AND ROUND cable.

mfg
wulfman

[Greebe]

Guru... that's bare unterminated cable you are refering to... and even if extended by making your own from it won't work anyway.

Hense the reason for the article

[Wombat]

There is ATA/100 cable out there, and ATA/66 cable that won't do 100? The difference? Signal integrity. ATA/66 doesn't have to have wire that is good enought for ATA/100.

Gurm is just completely off, this time.

[Gurm]

Sorry, sorry. I will, however, maintain that there is precious little (or none at all) difference between GOOD ATA/66 and so-called ATA/100 cable.

The point, however, is moot - since there doesn't exist an IDE drive that can deliver more than about 25MB/sec.

- Gurm

[Gurm]

Alas, 'tis true.

I spoke without thinking. However, I will maintain that there is precious little (aka none at all) difference between GOOD ata/66 cable and so-called ATA/100 cable. Much like there's no difference between GOOD 8x media and 12x media.

- Gurm (who shall henceforth be referred to as THE ANGRY SCOTSMAN!)