Basic hard drive interfaces. Hard drive connection interfaces - IDE, SATA and others

When purchasing a hard drive, various uncertainties may arise regarding some parameters. Quite often, users get confused about the interfaces of hard drives, although there are essentially only two main interfaces - IDE and SATA.

In this article we will try to thoroughly understand this important parameter, and also consider in detail each of the most popular interfaces. Also, let’s not ignore the morally and physically outdated (as of 2014) IDE interface in order to bury it completely.

So, first you need to understand the concept of an interface, precisely in the context hard drives. Interface– this is a means of interaction, in the case of HDD, consisting of signal lines, an interface controller and a special protocol (set of rules). As you know, we insert one end of the interface cable (be it IDE or SATA) into the connector on the HDD, and the other end into the connector on motherboard.

Now let's go through each of the most popular interfaces, but let's start with the older one, which has long since fallen out of mass use, but is still present in a number of legacy systems.

IDE (ATA) interface

IDE - Integrated Drive Electronics (electronics that are built into the drive). It is also called PATA.

As mentioned above, this interface is very outdated. It was developed back in 1986. We will not talk much about this interface and its specifications. We note the fact that it has a rather low data transfer rate compared to SATA. IDE is used only in very old systems whose motherboards do not support the SATA interface, or when an IDE disk is available. Figure 1 shows the IDE cable, and the corresponding connector on the motherboard is shown in (Figure 2).

Fig.1

Fig.2

When purchasing a new hard drive, you need to familiarize yourself with the interfaces that your motherboard supports ( motherboard selection). The newest motherboards are often released without IDE connectors, but you can still find quite a few models that support both IDE and SATA interfaces. Again, if you have a SATA interface, it is better to purchase an appropriate drive with this interface than to go back in time and buy an IDE drive (in the case of motherboards that support both standards).

Interfaces SATA, SATA 2(II), SATA 3 (III)

In 2002, the first hard drives appeared, with a progressive interface at that time SATA. Maximum speed the data transfer rate of which was 150 MB/s.

If we talk about the advantages, the first thing that catches your eye is the replacement 80-wire loop(Fig. 1), for seven-core SATA cable(Fig. 3), which is much more resistant to interference, which made it possible to increase the standard cable length from 46 cm to 1 m. Also, appropriate SATA connectors(Fig. 4), which are several times more compact than the connectors of the previous IDE standard. This made it possible to place more connectors on the motherboard; now more than 6 can be found on new motherboards SATA connectors, versus traditional 2-3 IDEs in older motherboards oriented to this standard.

Fig.3

Fig.4

Then, the SATA II standard appeared, the data transfer speed reached 300 MB/s. This standard has many advantages, including: Native Command Queuing technology (it was this technology that made it possible to achieve a speed of 300 MB/s), hot-plugging disks, executing several commands in one transaction, and others.

Well, in 2009 the interface was introduced SATA 3. This standard provides for data transfer at speeds 600 MB/s(for hard drives, “oh” how redundant).

Interface improvements can include more efficient power management and, of course, increased speed.

It should be noted that SATA, SATA II and SATA III are completely compatible, which is very practical due to the many upgrades of various system components. Also, I would like to draw attention to the fact that the SATA interface is used by SSD drives and DVD/CD drives. It will be very useful for fast SSD drives, high speeds SATA interface.

As a small summary of this article, I will say once again that when choosing a hard drive(specifically the interface), you need to pay attention to which standard your motherboard supports. In light of current trends, this will most likely be one of the SATA standards. And for old motherboards and hard drives, the IDE standard always remains.

Now, doubts about which interface to choose: IDE or SATA should disappear. Good luck!

P.S. We looked at the most popular interfaces; there are many more specific ones. For example, removable hard drives use the standard eSATA etc.

A laptop is a portable computer on which many users store important information. Due to its form factor, the laptop may become unusable, for example, fall and break. In this case, there is a high probability that the hard drive a laptop computer from which you can read data and, if necessary, can use it in the future. Connect the hard drive from the laptop to desktop computer can be done in several ways, by installing it in the system unit case, or via a USB connector. Let's consider both options.

How to install a laptop hard drive into a system unit

A laptop hard drive is practically no different from a standard one. hard drive for computer. Its only serious difference is its size. For regular system units, 3.5-inch drives are used, while for laptops, in order to save space, 2.5-inch drives are used. Accordingly, since the laptop disk is smaller than a standard disk for a system unit, it cannot be securely mounted and secured inside the case.

To install a laptop hard drive in system unit, you will need to purchase special carriers for 2.5-inch drives. They need to be installed in place for the 3.5-inch hard drive and secured. After this, a 2.5-inch disk is attached to this slide.

Please note: Some computer cases may initially provide space for installing and securing 2.5-inch hard drives.

When the hard drive from the laptop is “planted” in the system unit case, you need to connect it. The disk connection is standard:

1. You need to connect a SATA cable from the motherboard to the hard drive;
2. Next, additional power is connected.

After completing the steps described above, you can turn on the computer. After loading the operating system, the hard drive will appear in the list of drives. If this does not happen, you need to check in the BIOS whether this disk is set to boot.

How to connect a hard drive from a laptop to a computer via USB

You can connect the hard drive to the computer via a USB connector, in which case there is no need to disassemble the system unit. In this case, you can connect a 2.5-inch drive via USB in different ways, let's look at three main ones.

Using an adapter

On sale you can find special adapters that allow you to connect a 2.5-inch hard drive to a USB connector. Such adapters have connectors in the form of SATA and power.

Please note: If your computer hasUSB connectors are class 3.0; it is better to purchase an adapter with this protocol so that the hard drive works faster when connected externally.

Using a removable housing

Similar to the previous option for connecting a hard drive from a laptop to a computer, but instead of an adapter, a full-fledged case is used. Inside this case there is a SATA connector and power supply. The hard drive must be placed in the case, after which you will only need to use a USB cable to connect it to the computer.

Using a removable case allows you not only to connect the hard drive to your computer, but also to protect it from damage in the event of a fall.

Important: When purchasing, make sure that the case is designed specifically for 2.5-inch hard drives, since you can also find options for connecting full-size 3.5-inch drives. computer disks via USB connector.

Using the docking station

The most interesting and expensive option, suitable for users who often have to connect hard drives to their computer, involves the use of a special docking station. On sale you can find docking stations that allow you to connect several 2.5 or 3.5-inch drives at once. Some docking stations allow you to connect hard drives of different sizes at the same time.

The article is dedicated to my friend,
which I bought for my home computer
hard Seagate Cheetah UWSCSI.

Today there are a huge number of different technologies and hard drive interfaces. The number of foreign and incomprehensible words that clog the great and mighty language of sellers computer equipment It’s growing all the time, and when you come to the store to buy a new hard drive, you can hear so many things. For example: IDE, ATA, Serial ATA, SCSI, SCSI II, Wide SCSI II, Ultra SCSI II, Ultra Wide SCSI II, Ultra2 SCSI, Ultra160 SCSI, Fiber Channel, IEEE 1394, FireWire, iLink, USB, RAID, 5400rpm, 7200rpm , 10,000rpm, 15,000rpm... So how? Are your ears already applauding? So this article should help you figure out which device that the seller will try to sell you is really worth buying. I hope you make the right decision.

And take note. This article is not just for great, super-duper computer geeks. And not even for them at all. They already know everything. This article is intended for the average hard drive buyer who has little understanding of all of the above terms. Let's say you're building a new computer or upgrading an old one. You've thought about a SCSI hard drive, but you know very little about this interface, and you've also heard something, perhaps even good, about IEEE 1394, but you have absolutely no idea what it's used with. Then you've come to the right place.

Interfaces.

First of all, you need to think about the disk with which interface you will buy. Firmly settled on an IDE? What about SCSI, IEEE 1394 or USB? Depending on the interface, hard drives can differ in speed characteristics, cost, cable length, flexibility and reliability, and who knows what else. So we'll start with interfaces.

IDE/ATA

IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) is the name of a type of hard drive that has an ATA (AT Attachment) interface. Cheap IDE electronics combined with parallel ATA transfers produce hard drives that will take you around the world. However, do not forget that ATA is not intended for external connections, and does not like cables longer than 60cm. That is, you can buy such ATA cables, but I don’t recommend using them.

One ATA channel can support up to two drives, the first is the master and the secondary is the slave. Very often, if not almost always, people put a hard drive on one channel as a master and another, slower device, such as a CD-ROM, as a slave. But since the IDE can only access one device on a channel at a time, this reduces the performance of the system as a whole. So it’s better not to have slave devices at all. Especially. That now all motherboards have two integrated IDE channels, and some (like my favorite ABIT BX-133 RAID) have four. Simply connect the hard drive as master to the first channel, and the DVD or CD-ROM as master to the second channel.

There are three main standards on the market today IDE disk s: ATA/33, ATA/66 and ATA/100. In this case, the number shows the maximum throughput in megabytes per second. Just remember that ATA/66 and ATA/100 require a special ATA/66/100 80-pin cable, and with a standard 40-pin cable your ATA/66/100 drive will work like an ATA/33. As a rule, such a cable comes with all motherboards that support ATA/66/100. These three standards are collectively called UDMA. Although this is incorrect, you will often hear UDMA, ATA and IDE used interchangeably.

All IDE drives must work with all ATA variants. An ATA/100 drive should work just fine with an ATA/33 controller, and an ATA/33 drive should work just as well with an ATA/100 controller. But, it is clear that the hard drive will operate at the speed of the slowest component. In both of these cases, this will be the speed ATA/33, that is, the maximum throughput will be equal to 33Mb/sec. Sometimes you can come across some incompatibilities, such as when a particular drive does not want to work with a particular cable, or two drives from different manufacturers do not want to coexist on the same controller channel. Well, electronics are a complicated thing. To make sure of this, just disassemble the hard drive and see where all these gigabytes are located inside. But it’s better to do this with a “dead” hard drive, and not with the one on which a collection of your favorite pictures and texts about Winnie the Pooh is stored.

In fact, the performance difference between ATA/33, 66 and 100 is not that big, since the conversation is ongoing about peak throughput, which in real work is achieved extremely rarely. There are no ATA/100 drives capable of transferring data even at 66MB/sec, and very few that do. That allows transfer of 33Mb/sec. Cache only hard memory disk can take advantage of increased throughput. But for this, the cache size must be large enough. And most IDE drives have only 512KB of cache memory, and only a few, the most expensive ones, can boast of a 2 or even 4 MB cache.

So the main disadvantage of the IDE is still its low speed. Certainly. Modern IDE drives have caught up with the speed characteristics of older models of SCSI drives, but they still cannot compare with new SCSI hard drives. You can buy enough fast IDE drive with a rotation speed of 7200 revolutions per minute (rpm), but you can also buy a SCSI drive with a speed of 15,000 rpm, which will be much faster. Also, the time between failures, as stated by manufacturers, is much shorter for IDE drives than for SCSI drives. It may just be marketing, but there is a widespread belief that SCSI devices are more reliable than IDE devices.

However, even discs with a spindle speed of 7200 rpm are quite expensive. Most models on our market have a rotation speed of 5400rpm. Such drives cost $30-40 less and produce less noise, but they have less performance. Although for home use, this is what you need.

The future of the ATA is likely. It lies on the path to the transition to the Serial ATA standard. Serial ATA will have a cable with only two pins (one for receiving, one for transmitting), and should provide IDE throughput of up to 1.5 Gbps, and possibly more. This doubles the bandwidth of the ATA/100, which has 40 times more pins. The only negative side of Serial ATA is that there can only be one device per channel, but if you have a controller with multiple channels this is not a problem.

• Good performance for little money
• Widely distributed and therefore compatible with most existing equipment.

• Not the fastest wheels
• Strict limitation on cable length
• Only internal

SCSI

SCSI has long been standard interface for workstations and servers. And although SCSI is significantly more expensive than IDE, for this money we get much greater bandwidth, support for more devices on one channel, much longer cable lengths (up to 12 meters), support for external devices and multitasking. Quite a lot, isn't it?

A regular (sometimes called “narrow”) SCSI bus can carry up to 8 devices, and a wide bus can carry up to 16. The SCSI controller itself occupies one address, and leaves the remaining 15 for connected devices (accordingly, on the narrow bus there are 7 addresses left for devices ). Higher SCSI addresses have higher priority. This makes SCSI installation a bit of a chore. It is usually better to give higher priority to slow devices such as CD-ROMs rather than hard drives.

There are many different SCSI options. We have already written about them, and I recommend the article “SCSI Interfaces” to anyone who wants to study this issue in detail. Among the devices currently available on the market are Ultra, Ultra2 and Ultra160 SCSI. Ultra SCSI allows transfer of 20Mb/s and has 8 addresses. The wide version of Ultra SCSI doubles the throughput, that is, up to 40 MB/sec. Ultra2 SCSI, also known as LVD (Low Voltage Differential) SCSI, has a throughput of 40 Mb/s, and, accordingly, its wide version gives us 80 Mb/s. Ultra160 SCSI continues the tradition of doubling the throughput, but comes only in the wide version, which gives us 16 devices per channel and 160Mb/s.

SCSI devices, as a rule, have compatibility, as they say, from top to bottom. True, no one guarantees this, but in most cases, let's say for example, a SCSI-2 device will feel great on an Ultra2Wide SCSI controller. True, it happens that if there is a fast and slow devices both start working at the slowest maximum speed. But in fact, how different SCSI devices suspended nearby will behave depends mainly on the controller.

With SCSI, problems often arise regarding installation and first configuration, especially for those who are doing this for the first time. All these terminators and identifiers can cause a serious headache. At the same time, all these problems are more than compensated by the reliability of this interface. And the appearance of active terminators (they have nothing to do with robots from the future) has significantly simplified the installation of SCSI devices. So rejoice, it was worse before.

The main advantage, the main strength of SCSI is expressed by the capacious foreign word high-end, that is, the fastest, most capacious hard drives have a SCSI interface. The Seagate Cheetah with 15,000 spindle rpm in the IDE version has never been produced and is unlikely to be. Well, the ability to support up to 15 devices on one channel indicates excellent scalability, which is also extremely important for certain purposes.

The world of SCSI is so vast that this is not even a topic for one article, so before I put an end to this section, I will just say a few more words about the future.

And the future of SCSI is already planned out like clockwork. The first Ultra320 devices are already appearing, and the next step will be the Ultra640. The SCSI standard itself was originally intended to be scalable, and has become so scalable that it is unlikely that anything can compare with it in this regard.

• Great productivity
• Large volumes
• Possibility of connecting both internal and external devices

• Expensive
• There may be problems during installation

Fiber Channel

Fiber channel is an interface that is fundamentally different from SCSI and IDE. It's actually closer to Ethernet and InfiniBand, if that tells you anything. And if not, then understand the following: this interface is intended not only for connecting hard drives and all other peripherals to the system, but primarily for organizing networks, combining remote friend from each other hard drive arrays, and other operations requiring high throughput in combination with long distances. Fiber channel is often used to connect SCSI RAID arrays to the network working group or the server.

Existing technologies allow Fiber channel throughput of 100 Mbit/s, and the theoretical limit of this technology lies somewhere around 1.06 Gbit/s. At the same time, a number of companies are already developing devices with a throughput of up to 2.12 Gbit/s, but this is the next generation of the Fiber channel interface. There are also solutions on today's market where a number of Fiber channels are used simultaneously to achieve super-high throughput.

Unlike SCSI, Fiber channel has much more flexibility. If SCSI is limited to only 12 meters, then Fiber channel allows connections up to 10 km long when using an optical cable and somewhat less when using relatively inexpensive copper connections, although relatively inexpensive ;-).

• Very good scalability
• Very long connection distances (up to 10 km)
• A network of many workstations can work with one RAID array

• Expensive
• Very expensive
• The better, the more expensive

IEEE 1394

IEEE 1394, aka FireWire (as Apple called it), aka iLink (as Sony called it), is really becoming a standard for transmitting digital video, but can also be used for connecting hard disks, scanners, network equipment, digital cameras, and everything that requires good bandwidth. Currently, FireWire remains a fairly expensive solution (at least for the average user), but the standard is increasingly penetrating all areas of computer peripherals and is constantly becoming cheaper.

FireWire is capable of supporting up to 63 devices on a single 400Mbps channel. And IEEE 1394b, the first attempt at a major overhaul of FireWire, will support throughput of 800 Mbps per channel. FireWire provides better performance, but external devices with this interface require separate external source nutrition.

The first FireWire hard drives are already starting to appear, and models that use an IDE/FireWire translator have been around for quite some time. But this interface is already widely used for video cameras, scanners and printers. Also based on FireWire you can cost productive local networks. Many Apple computer models have one or two FireWire ports, but on PCs this standard has not yet received such recognition.

The best feature of FireWire is its hot pluggability. That is, you can connect and disconnect FireWire devices without turning off the computer. But if such a device is a hard drive, then the operating system must be able to mount new hard drives on the fly.

The future of IEEE 1394 looks quite optimistic, given the youth of this standard, and the almost ready specification 1394b, which allows doubling the throughput. And the recognition of this standard is a matter of the near future; its popularity is growing every day, and prices are correspondingly falling.

• Hot plugging
• High throughput
• No prioritization of devices

• Hard drive controllers are still very expensive

USB

USB 1 (Universal Serial Bus) is a standard that has become extremely widespread over the past few years. It's hard to find a computer that doesn't have USB support (unless it's an old Pentium100). This interface has two speed modes. The first - “high-speed” - provides a throughput of 12 Mbit/s and a connecting cable length of up to 5 meters. The second is low-speed - bandwidth 1.5 Mbit/s and cable length up to 3 meters. It is clear that this standard is of little use for hard drives due to its slowness, but for all kinds of devices backup, CD-R, scanners, network devices and input devices are quite suitable.

One USB channel can contain up to 127 devices, for which devices that pass the signal through themselves or USB hubs can be used. USB has what is called a master controller, so any signal transmitted from, say, a USB hard drive to a USB CDR must pass through the controller and then go to the desired device. This greatly reduces throughput when using multiple USB devices. In addition, USB devices cannot be shared (on a network, for example), although two computers can be connected to each other USB network via USB bridge.

But, with all its disadvantages, USB allows “hot” connection. True, the operating system will still require you to provide a driver for a new device, but you will not have to restart the computer. Although this is debatable. For example, I recently came across a network USB card(a convenient tool for connecting a sealed computer to the network), so I connected it “hot”, and after installing the drivers, Windows offered to reboot. So, as they say, even the morgue doesn’t give you 100%.

Well, everything is already known about the future of USB (at least the near future). This future will be USB 2, and not someday, but around the beginning of next year. USB 2 will raise the bandwidth bar from 12 to 480 Mbps. Then it will be possible to seriously think about a hard drive with a USB 2 interface. In the meantime, there is debate on the Internet whether USB 2 will be replaced by FireWire or whether both standards will find themselves in different areas of computer peripherals.

• Widespread
• Low cost
• Hot plugging

• Low efficiency for communication between devices
• Low speed (USB 2 will fix this)
• Short length of connecting cables

So choose what?

In fact, the choice is already determined by your goal. If you are building a home computer for gaming or office work, then an IDE drive will give you the best price/performance combination. USB works well for an external CDR or tape drive for backup (as long as you don't copy too much). Like, cheap and cheerful, but you can carry it from place to place as much as you like. If you need fast external drive for connecting to a laptop, or for regular transfer between several computers, and the main requirement in addition to mobility is performance, then IEEE 1394 is your choice. If we are talking about equipping a serious workstation or server, where reliability and performance are critical, then best choice- SCSI, especially in the form of RAID, although it costs a lot. Well, if you are forming a cluster of automated workstations that require high-speed access to a large array of data, then the Fiber channel will provide you with speed; the remoteness of the workstations from the array of information practically does not matter. Another possibility is to create a Gigabit Ethernet network, and for the server, as a rule, they choose a RAID SCSI solution, or, for non-critical servers, IDE RAID.

So what is RAID?

RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks, or in Russian - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks (yeah, I saw these inexpensive ones, my entire computer costs less than the hard drives in those RAIDs). RAID has two main goals, to improve speed and/or reliability. There are quite a few types of RAID, but the main ones are RAID 0, 1 and 0+1. RAID 0 allows you to combine the capacity of two disks into a single unit, so that the operating system will see them and use them as one physical disk. RAID 1 allows you to create a “mirror”, that is, information is written immediately to both the first and the second disk, and if the first, main hard drive “dies,” then all the data on the second will be safe and sound. Well, and finally, RAID 0+1 simultaneously uses the two modes described above (do not forget that this requires at least four hard drives, two are merged into the array, and two are used for the “mirror”). There are also other RAID options to increase the reliability of information storage, such as parity, to check data integrity.

What about the size?

Are you having trouble figuring out how much space you'll need? 10GB is the minimum volume that can be purchased today. Although there are still smaller hard drives lying around, but by the time you finish reading this article, by the time you are ready to buy something, they will no longer be on sale. If you are fond of collecting MP3 music, downloading a lot of video clips from the Internet (then you have a dedicated line :-) and you will need at least 20 or 30GB. Well, if you want to start creating animation, video processing, etc., then 50-100GB will be just right.

Everything you read should not be taken to heart. Shouts like “I have a small hard drive, and the girls in class laugh at me” are also not necessary. Time will pass, the hard drive will grow, and everything will be fine.

Write to me at [email protected], just don’t ask for free hard drives. I still won't give it :-).

Hello! We have looked at it in detail hard device disk, but I didn’t specifically say anything about interfaces - that is, ways of interaction between the hard drive and other computer devices, or more specifically, ways of interacting (connecting) the hard drive and the computer.

Why didn't you say so? But because this topic is worthy of no less than an entire article. Therefore, today we will analyze in detail the most popular hard drive interfaces at the moment. I’ll immediately make a reservation that the article or post (whichever is more convenient for you) this time will have an impressive size, but unfortunately there’s no way to go without it, because if you write briefly, it will turn out to be completely unclear.

Computer hard drive interface concept

First, let's define the concept of "interface". Speaking in simple language(and it is to them that I will express myself as much as possible, because the blog is intended for ordinary people, like you and me), interface - the way devices interact with each other and not only devices. For example, many of you have probably heard about the so-called “friendly” interface of a program. What does it mean? This means that the interaction between a person and a program is easier, not requiring much effort on the part of the user, compared to a “non-friendly” interface. In our case, the interface is simply a way of interaction between the hard drive and the computer motherboard. It is a set of special lines and a special protocol (a set of data transfer rules). That is, purely physically, it is a cable (cable, wire), on both sides of which there are inputs, and on the hard drive and motherboard there are special ports (places where the cable is connected). Thus, the concept of interface includes the connecting cable and ports located on the devices it connects.

Well, now for the “juice” of today’s article, let’s go!

Types of interaction between hard drives and computer motherboard (types of interfaces)

So, first in line we will have the most “ancient” (80s) of all, it can no longer be found in modern HDDs, this is the IDE interface (aka ATA, PATA).

IDE- translated from English “Integrated Drive Electronics”, which literally means “built-in controller”. It was only later that IDE began to be called an interface for data transfer, since the controller (located in the device, usually in hard drives and optical drives) and the motherboard needed to be connected with something. It (IDE) is also called ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment), it turns out something like “Advanced Connection Technology”. The point is that ATA - parallel interface data transmission, for which soon (literally immediately after the release of SATA, which will be discussed below) it was renamed PATA (Parallel ATA).

What can I say, although the IDE was very slow (the data transfer channel bandwidth ranged from 100 to 133 megabytes per second in different versions IDE - and even then purely theoretically, in practice much less), but it allowed you to simultaneously connect two devices to the motherboard at once, using one cable.

Moreover, in the case of connecting two devices at once, the line capacity was divided in half. However, this is far from the only drawback of the IDE. The wire itself, as can be seen from the figure, is quite wide and, when connected, will take up the lion's share free space in the system unit, which will negatively affect the cooling of the entire system as a whole. All in all IDE is already outdated morally and physically, for this reason the IDE connector is no longer found on many modern motherboards, although until recently they were still installed (in the amount of 1 piece) on budget motherboards and on some boards in the mid-price segment.

The next interface, no less popular than the IDE in its time, is SATA (Serial ATA), characteristic feature which is serial data transmission. It is worth noting that at the time of writing this article, it is the most widespread for use in PCs.

There are 3 main variants (revisions) of SATA, differing from each other in throughput: rev. 1 (SATA I) - 150 Mb/s, rev. 2 (SATA II) - 300 Mb/s, rev. 3 (SATA III) - 600 Mb/s. But this is only in theory. In practice, the writing/reading speed of hard drives usually does not exceed 100-150 MB/s, and the remaining speed is not yet in demand and only affects the speed of interaction between the controller and the HDD cache memory (increases the disk access speed).

Among the innovations, we can note - backward compatibility of all versions of SATA (a disk with a SATA rev. 2 connector can be connected to a motherboard with a SATA rev. 3 connector, etc.), improved appearance and ease of connecting/disconnecting the cable, increased cable length compared to IDE (1 meter maximum, versus 46 cm on the IDE interface), support NCQ functions starting from the first revision. I hasten to please owners of old devices that do not support SATA - they exist adapters from PATA to SATA, this is a real way out of the situation, allowing you to avoid wasting money on buying a new motherboard or a new hard drive.

Also, unlike PATA, the SATA interface provides for “hot-swappable” hard drives, which means that when the computer system unit is powered on, you can attach/detach hard drives. True, to implement it you will need to delve a little into BIOS settings and enable AHCI mode.

Next in line - eSATA (External SATA)- was created in 2004, the word "external" indicates that it is used to connect external hard drives. Supports " hot swap" drives. The length of the interface cable is increased compared to SATA - maximum length is now as much as two meters. eSATA is not physically compatible with SATA, but has the same bandwidth.

But eSATA is far from the only way connect external devices to your computer. For example FireWire- consistent high speed interface to connect external devices, including HDD.

Supports hot swapping of hard drives. In terms of bandwidth it is comparable to USB 2.0, and with the advent of USB 3.0 it even loses in speed. However, it does have the advantage that FireWire is able to provide isochronous data transmission, which facilitates its use in digital video, since it allows data to be transmitted in real time. Sure, FireWire is popular, but not as popular as, for example, USB or eSATA. It is used quite rarely to connect hard drives; in most cases, FireWire is used to connect various multimedia devices.

USB (Universal Serial Bus), perhaps the most common interface used to connect external hard drives, flash drives and solid state drives(SSD). As in the previous case, there is support for “hot swap”; the maximum length of the connecting cable is quite large - up to 5 meters in case USB usage 2.0, and up to 3 meters - if USB 3.0 is used. You can probably make the cable longer, but in this case stable work devices will be in question.

Baud rate USB data 2.0 is about 40 Mb/s, which is generally a low figure. Yes, of course, for an ordinary daily work with files, a channel bandwidth of 40 Mb/s is enough, but as soon as we start talking about working with large files, you will inevitably begin to look towards something faster. But it turns out there is a way out, and its name is USB 3.0, the bandwidth of which, compared to its predecessor, has increased 10 times and is about 380 Mb/s, that is, almost the same as SATA II, even a little more.

There are two types of USB cable pins, type "A" and type "B", located on opposite ends of the cable. Type "A" - controller (motherboard), type "B" - connected device.

USB 3.0 (Type "A") is compatible with USB 2.0 (Type "A"). Types "B" are not compatible with each other, as can be seen from the figure.

Thunderbolt(Light Peak). In 2010 by Intel the first computer with this interface was demonstrated, and a little later, the no less famous Apple company. Thunderbolt is quite cool (how could it be otherwise, Apple knows what is worth investing in), is it worth talking about its support for such features as: the notorious “hot swap”, simultaneous connection with several devices at once, truly “huge” data transfer speed (20 times faster than USB 2.0).

The maximum cable length is only 3 meters (apparently more is not necessary). However, despite all the listed advantages, Thunderbolt is not yet “massive” and is used mainly in expensive devices.

Let's move on. Next up we have a couple of very similar interfaces - SAS and SCSI. Their similarity lies in the fact that they are both used primarily in servers where high performance and the shortest possible hard disk access time are required. However, there is also reverse side medals - all the advantages of these interfaces are compensated by the price of devices that support them. Hard drives that support SCSI or SAS are much more expensive.

SCSI(Small Computer System Interface) - a parallel interface for connecting various external devices (not just hard drives).

It was developed and standardized even somewhat earlier than the first version of SATA. IN fresh version SCSI has hot-swappable support.

SAS(Serial Attached SCSI), which replaced SCSI, was supposed to solve a number of the latter's shortcomings. And I must say - he succeeded. The fact is that due to its “parallelism” SCSI used common bus, therefore, only one of the devices could work with the controller at a time; SAS does not have this drawback.

Plus, it's backwards compatible with SATA, which is definitely a big plus. Unfortunately, the cost of hard drives is SAS interface is close to the cost of SCSI hard drives, but there is no way to get rid of this; you have to pay for speed.

If you're not tired yet, I suggest you consider one more interesting way HDD connections - NAS(Network Attached Storage). Currently network systems data storage (NAS) are very popular. Essentially, this is a separate computer, a kind of mini-server responsible for storing data. It connects to another computer via network cable and is controlled from another computer through a regular browser. All this is needed in cases where great disk space, which is used by several people at once (in the family, at work). Data from network storage transmitted to user computers either via regular cable(Ethernet), or when Wi-Fi assistance. In my opinion, a very convenient thing.

I think that's all for today. I hope you liked the material, I suggest you subscribe to blog updates so as not to miss anything (form in the upper right corner) and we will meet you in the next blog articles.

Have you bought a brand new hard drive for your computer and don’t know how to connect it?! In this article I will try to talk about this in detail and in an accessible way.

To begin with, it should be noted that the hard drive is connected to the motherboard either through the IDE interface or through the SATA interface. The IDE interface is currently considered obsolete, as it was popular back in the 90s of the last century, and new hard drives are no longer equipped with it. The SATA interface is found in all computers that have been produced since approximately 2009. We will consider connecting a hard drive with both interfaces.

Connecting a hard drive via SATA interface

Disconnect the system unit from the network and remove sidebar. At the front of the system unit there are compartments for devices. Optical drives for CD/DVD and Blu-Ray are usually installed in the upper compartments, while the lower compartments are intended for installation of hard disks. If your system unit does not have the compartments shown in the figure, you can install the hard drive in the upper compartment.

We install the hard drive in a free cell so that the connectors face inside the system unit, and fasten it to the case with screws: two screws on one side and two on the other.

This completes the installation of the hard drive, check that it is not loose in the cell.

Now you can connect the hard drive to the motherboard.

If you purchased a hard drive with a SATA interface, then the drive itself has two connectors: the shorter one is responsible for transferring data from the motherboard, the longer one is for power. Additionally, the hard drive may have another connector; it is useful for supplying power via the IDE interface.

The data cable has identical plugs at both ends.

We connect one end of the cable to the SATA data connector on the hard drive.

The data cable plug can be either straight or L-shaped. You don’t have to worry about the correct connection; you simply won’t be able to plug the cable into the wrong connector or the wrong side.

We connect the other end of the cable to the connector on the motherboard, usually they are bright in color.

If the motherboard does not have a SATA connector, you need to buy a SATA controller. It looks like a board and is installed in the system unit in a PCI slot.

We are done connecting the data cable. Now we connect the power cable to the corresponding connector of the hard drive.

If your power supply does not have connectors for SATA devices, and the hard drive does not have an additional power connector for the IDE interface, use an IDE/SATA power adapter. Connect the IDE plug to the power supply, the SATA plug to the hard drive.

That's all, we connected a hard drive with a SATA interface.

Connecting a hard drive via the IDE interface

We install the hard drive into the system unit in the same way as described in the paragraph above.

Now you need to set the mode work hard disk: Master or Slave. If you are installing one hard drive, select Master mode. To do this, you need to place the jumper in the desired position.

The IDE connectors on the motherboard look like this. Next to each of them there is a designation: either IDE 0 – primary, or IDE 1 – secondary. Since we are connecting one hard drive, we will use the primary connector.

That's all, the hard drive is now connected.

I think now, using the information from this article, you can n connect the hard drive to the computer.

We also watch the video