IDE, short for Integrated Drive Electronics, is a standard connection type for computer storage devices. In general, IDE refers to the types of cables and ports used to connect some drives. hard drives Optical drives connect to each other and to the motherboard. An IDE cable, then, is a cable that meets these specifications.
Some common IDE implementations you may encounter in computers are PATA (Parallel ATA), the older IDE standard, and SATA (Serial ATA), the newer one.
Note: IDE is sometimes called IBM Disc Electronics or just ATA (Parallel ATA).
Why you need to know what IDE means
It is important to be able to identify IDE drives, cables, and ports when you upgrade your computers or purchase new devices that you will connect to your computer.
For example, knowing if you have an IDE hard drive will determine what you need to buy for it.Hard drive replacementIf you have a newer SATA drive and connections, but go out and buy an older PATA drive, you'll find that you can't connect it to your computer as easily as you'd hoped.
The same applies to external enclosures, which allow you to run hard drives outside of your computer via USBIf you have a PATA hard drive, you will need to use an enclosure that supports PATA, not SATA.
Note: IDE is also an abbreviation for other terms that have nothing to do with data cables, such as Integrated Development Environment (programming tools) and I wasn't even (texting abbreviation).
Important IDE Facts
IDE ribbon cables have three contacts, unlike SATA, which only has two. One end of the IDE cable is, of course, the connector for the motherboard. The other two are open to devices, meaning you can use a single IDE cable to connect two hard drives to a computer.
In fact, an IDE cable can support two different types of devices, such as a hard drive on one IDE port and a DVD drive on the other.
Note: If two devices are connected with an IDE cable at the same time, the jumpers must be set correctly.
An IDE cable has a red stripe along one edge, as you can see below. This side of the cable typically represents the first pin.
If you're having trouble comparing an IDE cable to a SATA cable, refer to the image below to see the sizes of IDE cables. IDE ports look similar because they will have the same number of pin holes.
Tip: Although it is important to distinguish between PATA and SATA, it is actually impossible to accidentally plug a SATA cable into an IDE slot, or an IDE cable into a SATA slot.
The speed of an IDE device depends not only on its capabilities, but also on the cable used. For example, if you connect a slow cable to a fast hard drive, the drive will only operate at the speed allowed by the cable.
Types of IDE cables
The two most common types of IDE ribbon cables are the 34-pin cable used for floppy drives and the 40-pin cable for hard drives and optical drives.
PATA cables can have data transfer speeds anywhere from 133 Mbps or 100 Mbps to 66 Mbps, 33 Mbps, or 16 Mbps, depending on the cable. You can read more about PATA cables here: What is a PATA Cable or Connector?
While PATA cables reach a maximum transfer speed of 133 MB/s, SATA cables support speeds of up to 1 MB/s. You can read more about this in the What is a SATA Cable or Connector? article.
Mixing IDE and SATA devices
At some point in the life of your devices and computer systems, one will likely use a newer technology than another. You may have a new SATA hard drive, for example, but a computer that only supports IDE.
Fortunately, there are adapters that allow you to connect a newer SATA device to an older IDE system, such as the Kingwin SATA to IDE Adapter.
Another way to mix SATA and IDE devices is with a USB adapter, like this one from UGREEN. Instead of having to open up your computer to connect a SATA device like you do with the adapter above, this device is external, so you can connect both IDE (2.5" or 3.5") drives and SATA hard drives to it and then connect them to your computer via USB.
What is Enhanced IDE (EIDE)?
EIDE stands for Enhanced IDE, an advanced version of IDE. It also goes by other names, such as Fast ATA, Ultra ATA, ATA-2, ATA-3, Fast IDE, and Expanded IDE.
This term is used to describe faster data transfer rates than the original IDE standard. For example, ATA-4 supports rates of up to 33 Mbps.
Another improvement over IDE seen with the first implementation of EIDE was support for storage devices up to 8.4 GB in size.
