ATA and DMA

[Guest]

what's the difference between ATA and DMA harddrive?
Will each kind of them need to operate with a specific type of motherboard?

 

[ejsmith2]

ATA is the interface standard, which is just a new name for EIDE. Basically, that's what you call the connector on your motherboard: ATA-33/66/100.
DMA is the method of transfer. It's used by the motherboard/bios to move that information from the hard drive to the system memory _without_ using the cpu. There's still some cpu utilization, but for what i'm not sure.
UDMA mode 5 complies with the ATA-100 standard, meaning the actual memory on the hard drive/bios can push 100meg/sec. The cable (80-conductor) and the bios both have to support ATA-100/UDMA-5.

 

[Guest]

Actually EIDE is a coined anacronym and a set of features defined initially by Western Digital that was latered encompassed by the ATA-2 standard, which defined other features as well that did not fall under EIDE. But that was some time ago and newer ATA standards have come out to encompass and define newer features.

***check the jumpers 1st then check em again***

 

[ejsmith2]

Acronyms are usually pretty good, such as Technology Without An Interesting Name. I forget what IDE and ATA stand for.

 

[Guest]

well they have definitely fallen into a void of confusion and meaningless in the realm of ATA standards that's for sure.

***check the jumpers 1st then check em again***