IDE Training Course, Part 1 over at Toms' Hardware!

Phantasm66 · Aug 6, 2002

Really nice article here which will explain a lot of stuff!

Read it here: http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/02q3/020806/index.html

.....In this first part, we'll take a closer look at the IDE interface. Though the most common, it has attracted very little attention. We'll shed light on its history and the technical details, and examine how each standard performs......

....Today this adapter is integrated directly on the motherboard, though it's really just an interface because the actual control logic is still located on the drive. Regardless of the protocol used, the length of the IDE interface has always been 16 bits. Modern motherboards offer two IDE interface channels, each of which can address two drives......

....No, this term does not denote a hip compact car, but rather a sort of intelligent early-warning system. SMART, Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology, permanently gets values from a modern hard drive's several sensors.

We generally differentiate between two types of operational failure: predictable and unpredictable errors. The latter simply occur every so often, and there's nothing you can do to prevent them (for example, the sudden defect in a chip). One example of predictable failure would be damage to the spindle motor. If you monitor the temperature of the spindle motor bearing or the time it takes to spin up, you'll be able to detect unusual behavior days, or even weeks before the failure - in a case like this, SMART would sound an alarm during boot-up. Ideally, the user still has time to save all important data to another storage medium....

....Western Digital's high-end drives are still counted among the best to be had in the area of hard drives. The WD1200 with a capacity of 120 GB is available with a buffer of either 2 MB or an impressive 8 MB (1200BB and 1200JB, respectively). Its rotational speed of 7,200 rpm also makes for short access times.....

Read it here: http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/02q3/020806/index.html

TechSpot

IDE Training Course, Part 1 over at Toms' Hardware!

Phantasm66 Newcomer, in training