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Seagate to Stop Making IDE Drives

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  • Richard Andrew x64R Offline
    Richard Andrew x64R Offline
    Richard Andrew x64
    wrote on last edited by
    #1

    http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070725-seagate-plans-to-stop-manufacturing-ide-drives-by-the-end-of-2007.html[^] The beginning of the end for IDE. :^) Does anyone know the technical reasons for how a serial technology overtook the parallel technology? I mean, the whole reason they invented the parallel printer port was that the serial ports were not fast enough, right? So I'm interested to learn why a serial interface was chosen for the next generation hard drive interface.

    -------------------------------- "All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing" -- Edmund Burke

    J R A L J 7 Replies Last reply
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    • Richard Andrew x64R Richard Andrew x64

      http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070725-seagate-plans-to-stop-manufacturing-ide-drives-by-the-end-of-2007.html[^] The beginning of the end for IDE. :^) Does anyone know the technical reasons for how a serial technology overtook the parallel technology? I mean, the whole reason they invented the parallel printer port was that the serial ports were not fast enough, right? So I'm interested to learn why a serial interface was chosen for the next generation hard drive interface.

      -------------------------------- "All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing" -- Edmund Burke

      J Offline
      J Offline
      Johnny
      wrote on last edited by
      #2

      If I understand it correctly the reason is that parallel communication has a host of problems (synchronisation of lines, interference etc) that restrict the speed of data, the distance that data can be sent, and the cost. People realised that serial was just easier, and data can be blasted out at higher speeds. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_communications[^]

      N B R 3 Replies Last reply
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      • Richard Andrew x64R Richard Andrew x64

        http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070725-seagate-plans-to-stop-manufacturing-ide-drives-by-the-end-of-2007.html[^] The beginning of the end for IDE. :^) Does anyone know the technical reasons for how a serial technology overtook the parallel technology? I mean, the whole reason they invented the parallel printer port was that the serial ports were not fast enough, right? So I'm interested to learn why a serial interface was chosen for the next generation hard drive interface.

        -------------------------------- "All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing" -- Edmund Burke

        R Offline
        R Offline
        RoswellNX
        wrote on last edited by
        #3

        Bastards. Laptop hard drives die often and there isn't a mini IDE to sATA adapter that i know of, so i guess i'll have to stick with WD for the next replacement:sigh: Roswell:(

        "Angelinos -- excuse me. There will be civility today."
        Antonio VillaRaigosa
        City Mayor, Los Angeles, CA

        S R A 3 Replies Last reply
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        • R RoswellNX

          Bastards. Laptop hard drives die often and there isn't a mini IDE to sATA adapter that i know of, so i guess i'll have to stick with WD for the next replacement:sigh: Roswell:(

          "Angelinos -- excuse me. There will be civility today."
          Antonio VillaRaigosa
          City Mayor, Los Angeles, CA

          S Offline
          S Offline
          Shouvik Das
          wrote on last edited by
          #4

          U can carry external PATA to USB adapters


          There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating-people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing. Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Regards... Shouvik

          R 1 Reply Last reply
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          • S Shouvik Das

            U can carry external PATA to USB adapters


            There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating-people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing. Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Regards... Shouvik

            R Offline
            R Offline
            RoswellNX
            wrote on last edited by
            #5

            shouvik.d wrote:

            U can carry external PATA to USB adapters

            Hmm? How is that's supposed to help when my PATA-only laptops' drives start to fail?

            shouvik.d's sig:

            There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating-people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.

            Which group do you suppose you belong to? Roswell [edit] - let me rephrase it then if nobody understood yet. Oh the morons:rolleyes:. If my good Seagate PATA dies, i can't hook it up to a PATA to USB adapter. It's dead. Gone. Getting a non-Seagate PATA (assuming my old drive dies after the Seagate stock of PATA drives runs dry) solves the problem of replacing the dead drive, but not quite at the same quality. In case you meant there's a SATA to USB adapter out there (to hook up a new Seagate SATA drive), let me explain to you that the vanilla USB (and even USB 2.0) will be a bottleneck that will eliminate any benefits to running a fast, high-quality drive, and i'll find it easier to just pull a second-hand 5 year old 10GB Toshiba drive out of the laptop in the closet if nothing else was available. Roswell:sigh:

            "Angelinos -- excuse me. There will be civility today."
            Antonio VillaRaigosa
            City Mayor, Los Angeles, CA

            S 1 Reply Last reply
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            • R RoswellNX

              shouvik.d wrote:

              U can carry external PATA to USB adapters

              Hmm? How is that's supposed to help when my PATA-only laptops' drives start to fail?

              shouvik.d's sig:

              There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating-people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.

              Which group do you suppose you belong to? Roswell [edit] - let me rephrase it then if nobody understood yet. Oh the morons:rolleyes:. If my good Seagate PATA dies, i can't hook it up to a PATA to USB adapter. It's dead. Gone. Getting a non-Seagate PATA (assuming my old drive dies after the Seagate stock of PATA drives runs dry) solves the problem of replacing the dead drive, but not quite at the same quality. In case you meant there's a SATA to USB adapter out there (to hook up a new Seagate SATA drive), let me explain to you that the vanilla USB (and even USB 2.0) will be a bottleneck that will eliminate any benefits to running a fast, high-quality drive, and i'll find it easier to just pull a second-hand 5 year old 10GB Toshiba drive out of the laptop in the closet if nothing else was available. Roswell:sigh:

              "Angelinos -- excuse me. There will be civility today."
              Antonio VillaRaigosa
              City Mayor, Los Angeles, CA

              S Offline
              S Offline
              Shouvik Das
              wrote on last edited by
              #6

              RoswellNX wrote:

              How is that's supposed to help when my PATA-only laptops' drives start to fail?

              Boot from USB


              There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating-people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing. Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Regards... Shouvik

              Z R 2 Replies Last reply
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              • S Shouvik Das

                RoswellNX wrote:

                How is that's supposed to help when my PATA-only laptops' drives start to fail?

                Boot from USB


                There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating-people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing. Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Regards... Shouvik

                Z Offline
                Z Offline
                Zoltan Balazs
                wrote on last edited by
                #7

                Yeah, but that's not a laptop anymore.

                Network integrated solutions A practical use of the MVC pattern

                S 1 Reply Last reply
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                • Z Zoltan Balazs

                  Yeah, but that's not a laptop anymore.

                  Network integrated solutions A practical use of the MVC pattern

                  S Offline
                  S Offline
                  Shouvik Das
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #8

                  Yup! I do agree. But then when this situation comes we can decide oursleves on our financial constarints which side to opt for a new Laptop with SATA interface / An USB interface. Sitting in this time I think it is difficult to presume what things would be like in future (at least in this aspect)


                  There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating-people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing. Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Regards... Shouvik

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                  • Richard Andrew x64R Richard Andrew x64

                    http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070725-seagate-plans-to-stop-manufacturing-ide-drives-by-the-end-of-2007.html[^] The beginning of the end for IDE. :^) Does anyone know the technical reasons for how a serial technology overtook the parallel technology? I mean, the whole reason they invented the parallel printer port was that the serial ports were not fast enough, right? So I'm interested to learn why a serial interface was chosen for the next generation hard drive interface.

                    -------------------------------- "All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing" -- Edmund Burke

                    A Offline
                    A Offline
                    Andy Brummer
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #9

                    At the same clock rate parallel is faster. However at higher clock rates, things like inductance cause interference in parallel cables limiting the clock rate for the cable. I believe that the latest parallel cables had extra wires in them between the signal wires to reduce interference. So, as the silicon got faster the interference in the parallel cables caused a bottleneck, so at the current signal rates serial signals can carry more data.


                    I can imagine the sinking feeling one would have after ordering my book, only to find a laughably ridiculous theory with demented logic once the book arrives - Mark McCutcheon

                    Richard Andrew x64R M 2 Replies Last reply
                    0
                    • J Johnny

                      If I understand it correctly the reason is that parallel communication has a host of problems (synchronisation of lines, interference etc) that restrict the speed of data, the distance that data can be sent, and the cost. People realised that serial was just easier, and data can be blasted out at higher speeds. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_communications[^]

                      N Offline
                      N Offline
                      NormDroid
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #10

                      Good info, thanks.

                      Roger Irrelevant "he's completely hatstand"

                      1 Reply Last reply
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                      • S Shouvik Das

                        RoswellNX wrote:

                        How is that's supposed to help when my PATA-only laptops' drives start to fail?

                        Boot from USB


                        There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating-people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing. Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Regards... Shouvik

                        R Offline
                        R Offline
                        RoswellNX
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #11

                        shouvik.d wrote:

                        Boot from USB

                        shouvik.d wrote:

                        But then when this situation comes we can decide oursleves on our financial constarints which side to opt for a new Laptop with SATA interface / An USB interface.

                        Sheeze...it's a 3 year old laptop. Sure, it has neither sATA nor USB 2.0, [which means booting and running the OS off a USB stick would be deathly slow], but other than that it's still nice. How ignorant do you have to be to simply throw it in the trash after a minor bump in the car, where then the hard drive starts going tic-toc tic-toc and fails to boot? The point is, i'm gonna take my business elsewhere, even thought i will be getting something less relable than Seagate.:rolleyes: - Or, i'm going to stock up on 6 top-of-the-line Seagate drives off of my next paycheck. a new Laptop with SATA interface / An USB interface. USB interface? Are you kidding me? :eek: :laugh: I still have a laptop somewhere in the closet from Feburary '99, and it has two USB ports. I mean really:-> Roswell P.S. less than a year ago, tech magazines and/or bloggers recommended that that you opt out on SATA when buying a new laptop, as unlike its full-sized cousin, mini-SATA wasn't much of a standard back then. When the next wave of drive faliures comes, guess who is going to get all the business?

                        "Angelinos -- excuse me. There will be civility today."
                        Antonio VillaRaigosa
                        City Mayor, Los Angeles, CA

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                        • A Andy Brummer

                          At the same clock rate parallel is faster. However at higher clock rates, things like inductance cause interference in parallel cables limiting the clock rate for the cable. I believe that the latest parallel cables had extra wires in them between the signal wires to reduce interference. So, as the silicon got faster the interference in the parallel cables caused a bottleneck, so at the current signal rates serial signals can carry more data.


                          I can imagine the sinking feeling one would have after ordering my book, only to find a laughably ridiculous theory with demented logic once the book arrives - Mark McCutcheon

                          Richard Andrew x64R Offline
                          Richard Andrew x64R Offline
                          Richard Andrew x64
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #12

                          Brilliant! And it makes sense too, because parallel communication depends upon wires right next to each other being able to change states independently of each other at a high rate. So inductance would definitely interfere if each wire is not carefully shielded from its neighbor.

                          -------------------------------- "All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing" -- Edmund Burke

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                          0
                          • Richard Andrew x64R Richard Andrew x64

                            http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070725-seagate-plans-to-stop-manufacturing-ide-drives-by-the-end-of-2007.html[^] The beginning of the end for IDE. :^) Does anyone know the technical reasons for how a serial technology overtook the parallel technology? I mean, the whole reason they invented the parallel printer port was that the serial ports were not fast enough, right? So I'm interested to learn why a serial interface was chosen for the next generation hard drive interface.

                            -------------------------------- "All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing" -- Edmund Burke

                            L Offline
                            L Offline
                            Lost User
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #13

                            Smaller connectors means less board space and lower cost, the silicon cost is insignificant and at higher speeds using parallel signals has skew and crosstalk problems.

                            Visit http://www.readytogiveup.com/[^] and do something special today.

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                            • A Andy Brummer

                              At the same clock rate parallel is faster. However at higher clock rates, things like inductance cause interference in parallel cables limiting the clock rate for the cable. I believe that the latest parallel cables had extra wires in them between the signal wires to reduce interference. So, as the silicon got faster the interference in the parallel cables caused a bottleneck, so at the current signal rates serial signals can carry more data.


                              I can imagine the sinking feeling one would have after ordering my book, only to find a laughably ridiculous theory with demented logic once the book arrives - Mark McCutcheon

                              M Offline
                              M Offline
                              Mike Dimmick
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #14

                              Well, you can improve noise rejection by using balanced signalling. One wire carries the signal (called D+), another carries the inverse of the signal (D-). At the receiver end, it inverts the inverted signal and adds the two together, getting 2D+. How does that help? Most external noise spikes will appear on both conductors in the same direction. Call the noise N, so the receiver sees (D+ + N) and (D- + N) - when you invert D- + N, you get (D+ - N). Add that to (D+ + N) and you still get 2D+ - the noise has been cancelled out. This kind of differential signalling is used in Base-T(X) networking (over Unshielded Twisted Pair) as well as in USB, Serial ATA, HyperTransport, PCI Express, DVI/HDMI and many others. In cables, having the pairs twisted together causes the magnetic field from D+ to effectively be cancelled out by D-, so there's very little net magnetic field, which therefore induces little current in neighbouring pairs (called crosstalk). The Parallel ATA 80-wire cable places a ground wire between each pair of conductors that carries a useful signal; this ground wire reduces the crosstalk, but not to nothing. I've seen 80-way cables intended for Parallel ATA which actually are not ribbons but bundles of twisted pairs. These are a really bad idea because the crosstalk problem returns - the twisted pairs are not being used for differential signalling so the magnetic fields are still present, and now you can have two signal wires in close proximity. The fact that the signal wire is twisted with a ground wire makes no difference. The main problem for parallel runs now, I believe, is that even minute differences in trace length are causing the data to be unsynchronized at the receiving end (i.e. they arrive at different times). This was always the case, but at the higher speeds, these time delays are starting to fall into the clock realm and the signal may well not have fully stabilised when the clock edge is interpreted, leading to one or more bit errors. You can avoid this to an extent by using some form of error-correcting codes to detect and recover some errors, but it's better to prevent the errors in the first place by avoiding the crosstalk interference. My understanding (based on ten minutes of reading Wikipedia!) is that PCI Express basically makes its single-bit 'lanes' unsynchronized - it's up to the receiver to reassemble the whole message.

                              Stability. What an interesting concept. --

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                              • Richard Andrew x64R Richard Andrew x64

                                http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070725-seagate-plans-to-stop-manufacturing-ide-drives-by-the-end-of-2007.html[^] The beginning of the end for IDE. :^) Does anyone know the technical reasons for how a serial technology overtook the parallel technology? I mean, the whole reason they invented the parallel printer port was that the serial ports were not fast enough, right? So I'm interested to learn why a serial interface was chosen for the next generation hard drive interface.

                                -------------------------------- "All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing" -- Edmund Burke

                                J Offline
                                J Offline
                                jhwurmbach
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #15

                                Richie308 wrote:

                                Does anyone know the technical reasons for how a serial technology overtook the parallel technology?

                                Manager could save a lot of wires that way. Sure - A Modern re-designed parallel connection would have been faster (see PCIe 16x), But this way they can sell all the new Hardware again - in a few years, when SATA becomes too slow.


                                Failure is not an option - it's built right in.

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                                • J Johnny

                                  If I understand it correctly the reason is that parallel communication has a host of problems (synchronisation of lines, interference etc) that restrict the speed of data, the distance that data can be sent, and the cost. People realised that serial was just easier, and data can be blasted out at higher speeds. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_communications[^]

                                  B Offline
                                  B Offline
                                  Bernhard
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #16

                                  Didn't you know that this is exactly what happened with USB vs. centronics (the old parellel printer port) ports on printers ? Exactly the same there.


                                  All the label says is that this stuff contains chemicals "... known to the State of California to cause cancer in rats and low-income test subjects."
                                  Roger Wright
                                  http://www.codeproject.com/lounge.asp?select=965687&exp=5&fr=1#xx965687xx

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                                  • Richard Andrew x64R Richard Andrew x64

                                    http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070725-seagate-plans-to-stop-manufacturing-ide-drives-by-the-end-of-2007.html[^] The beginning of the end for IDE. :^) Does anyone know the technical reasons for how a serial technology overtook the parallel technology? I mean, the whole reason they invented the parallel printer port was that the serial ports were not fast enough, right? So I'm interested to learn why a serial interface was chosen for the next generation hard drive interface.

                                    -------------------------------- "All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing" -- Edmund Burke

                                    V Offline
                                    V Offline
                                    Vladimir S
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #17

                                    But you can have paralellism with SATA - put two SATA drives in RAID stripe :)

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                                    • J Johnny

                                      If I understand it correctly the reason is that parallel communication has a host of problems (synchronisation of lines, interference etc) that restrict the speed of data, the distance that data can be sent, and the cost. People realised that serial was just easier, and data can be blasted out at higher speeds. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_communications[^]

                                      R Offline
                                      R Offline
                                      realJSOP
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #18

                                      Then why aren't SATA drives any faster than IDE drives?

                                      "Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
                                      -----
                                      "...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001

                                      D A P 3 Replies Last reply
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                                      • R RoswellNX

                                        Bastards. Laptop hard drives die often and there isn't a mini IDE to sATA adapter that i know of, so i guess i'll have to stick with WD for the next replacement:sigh: Roswell:(

                                        "Angelinos -- excuse me. There will be civility today."
                                        Antonio VillaRaigosa
                                        City Mayor, Los Angeles, CA

                                        R Offline
                                        R Offline
                                        realJSOP
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #19

                                        Fortunately, Toshiba makes a lot of the 2.5 inch IDE drives. :)

                                        "Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
                                        -----
                                        "...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001

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                                        • R realJSOP

                                          Then why aren't SATA drives any faster than IDE drives?

                                          "Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
                                          -----
                                          "...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001

                                          D Offline
                                          D Offline
                                          Dan Neely
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #20

                                          sustained bandwidth is limited by mechanical properties, for a 7200RPM drive roughly ATA66. SATA2.0 is 2.25x faster than ATA133 until you fill/flush the drives onboard cache. Saving your MS word document is faster even if your code build isn't. Other benefits include the smaller cables being easier to route without obstructing airflow, and being able to use the same phyiscal interface for desktop and laptop HDs. Presumably MP3 player drives would use it as well, but I've never actually seen one disassembled. IIRC the same physical interface is also used for SAS (serial attached scsi), again simplifying the hardware design. The hardware connectors allow hotswapping although outside of scsi land it's rarely if ever implemented on the hardware side.

                                          -- You have to explain to them [VB coders] what you mean by "typed". their first response is likely to be something like, "Of course my code is typed. Do you think i magically project it onto the screen with the power of my mind?" --- John Simmons / outlaw programmer

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