oldschooldaw.com
Hardware => 1990s => Computer Hardware => Pentium III (Feb 1999) => Topic started by: chrisNova777 on September 22, 2017, 06:59:29 AM
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https://www.anandtech.com/show/257
"the move to Ultra66 required 80pin IDE cables instead of the existing 40pin IDE cables"
Back in 1997, with Intel's release of the i430TX chipset one of the most highly boasted features of the new chipset standard was its support for the Ultra ATA/33 hard drive interface standard. Ultra ATA/33, by definition, allowed for burst transfer rates of up to 33.3MB/s for compliant EIDE devices over the PCI bus. Ultra ATA/33 was, at the time, the latest attempt at a low-cost competitor to the high-end SCSI standard for storage devices. The reason for the move to Ultra ATA/33, which was an effective doubling of the previous burst transfer rate standard for EIDE devices (DMA Mode 2 - PIO Mode 4) was basically because of the internal improvements in EIDE hard drives, making the drives reach a point where they could retrieve data internally faster than they could send it to the host controller. The situation provided a bit of a dilemma, as any case where a performance bottleneck is present would, in this case, the easiest solution came in the form of the Ultra ATA/33 standard which doubled burst transfer rates and bought the industry a couple more years until the performance bar needed to be lifted once again.
For those of you that were in to computer hardware when the TX chipset became popular it's quite difficult to remember exactly when Ultra ATA/33 took off, as it was a highly criticized "feature" due to its relatively small performance improvement over previous standards. Today, if you look at any EIDE hard drive, chances are you won't find anything that isn't Ultra ATA/33 compliant, isn't it funny how changes come to be?
Just as the industry reached that limitation in 1997, the time for the next "big" jump in hard drive interface standards is upon us, let's say hello to Ultra ATA/66.
(http://www.oldschooldaw.com/forums/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=4712.0;attach=5680;image)
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http://www.dewassoc.com/kbase/hard_drives/mandatory_req_ata.htm
In order for you to implement and utilize Ultra ATA technology (also referred to as Ultra DMA or Bus Mastering) your system must have all four of the following elements:
Ultra ATA/33, Ultra ATA/66, or Ultra ATA/100
1 compatible chipset or host adapter.
2 capable system BIOS.
3 device drivers.
4 An Ultra ATA capable hard drive or CD-ROM.