What Is an Ultra ATA Hard Drive?
Integrated Device Electronics (IDE) hard drives and their classifications are one of the more muddled among computer technology. Different companies designed different IDE hard drive standards with different brand names. Many of these hard drive standards had more than one name. Ultra ATA is one such IDE hard drive standard that is known by several different names and also spans several ATA standards in its usage.
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Development
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The hard drive standard that came to be known as Ultra ATA was approved by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) in 1998 as the fourth version of the ATA standard, also called ATA-4. It was based on a new technology developed by Quantum and Intel known as Ultra DMA, which allowed for faster transfer speeds, as well as other data integrity upgrades.
Transfer Speed
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Ultra ATA hard drives are able to achieve their faster transfer speeds -- doubling from 16.6 MB per second to 33.3 MB per second -- due to upgrading to the out-of-date synchronous mode of data transfer. Whereas previous versions of the IDE hard drive standard were asynchronous, meaning they had effectively half the bandwidth capability, Ultra DMA allowed data to be transferred twice as often. Later versions of Ultra ATA are able to raise data transfer rates even further by raising the speed at which each data request is sent.
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Data Integrity
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The previous version of IDE standard, ATA-3, introduced the Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology (SMART) technology, which enabled hard drives to check for data errors more efficiently. Ultra ATA introduced the Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC), a calculation performed by the hard drive to verify data after it was transferred.
Upgrades
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Each subsequent version of Ultra ATA, also approved by ANSI as ATA-5 and ATA-6, raised the data transfer speed further. ATA-5 was capable of transferring 66.6 MB per second; ATA-6 was capable of transferring 100 MB per second. ATA-5 accomplished this by lowering the setup time for the hard drive and increasing the speed for each individual data request; ATA-6 accomplished its higher speeds by reducing signal voltage. These later versions require cables with double the pins to achieve their higher transfer speeds.
Phasing Out
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All IDE hard drives, Ultra ATA included, are outdated now. Although Ultra ATA was upgraded to 133 MB per second, Serial ATA, a new, faster transfer technology, would eventually take the torch from IDE. All new computers use hard drive technology based on the SATA technology.
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References
- Photo Credit Ide computer cable image by Fatbob from Fotolia.com
