Link to home
Start Free TrialLog in
Avatar of KABOOM
KABOOM

asked on

IDE vs. EIDE

Our RAID controller supports ATA/100, ATA66, ATA33, EIDE OR Fast ATA2 compatible drives.

I just bought a Western Digital 120 GB drive (WD1200).
I'm a little worried that my freakin' drive I bought will not support the drives my RAID controller will recognize.

Can someone give me an answer to what the diff between IDE vs. EIDE drives are AND did I screw up and buy the wrong type of drive.

The only thing i've been able to find is that EIDE is a Western Digital thing but haven' been able to find a straight answer if they're the same.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Avatar of magarity
magarity

Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
Avatar of dbrunton
Any drive you buy now will be either ATA/100 or possibly  ATA66 so the WD is probably one of these, most likely the first..

And no you didn't screw up.

And if you really want to know what all those names and numbers mean

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/std.htm

And give the points to magarity
Avatar of RoadWarrior
RoadWarrior

Yeah you probably don't have a plain old "IDE" drive unless it's 200Mb or smaller, chunky looking, and only marginally faster than a floppy.

Also UDMA100=ATA100 etc. Interfaces are backwards compatible, any drive should work with them, also drives are backward compatible and should work on any interface, the maximum potential speed of the device will not be achieved in a legacy mode though. The only problems are with drives larger than a BIOS can handle. i.e. you can connect a 120G drive to your 286 but it will probably only see 512Mb, or even only 170Mb if it didn't have a definable drive type. But there are software installable boot block workarounds for that sort of thing even.

regards,

Road Warrior
Ummm maybe I should say that any drive will work with any interface as a single drive, and devices other than harddisks will only work with ATAPI compliant interfaces (circa 1994 and later). Put an old ST225 20Mb IDE drive and a 12xDVD on the same cable and there will be problems.
"Put an old ST225 20Mb IDE drive and a 12xDVD on the same cable and there will be problems"

You bet there'd be problems... I'd have to come over and beat you with a stick for doing something so absurd!