What is a PATA Hard Drive?

PATA (Parallel ATA) drives were one of the earliest drive types available to home computer users. Designed to be an inexpensive and commercially common technology, PATA drives were the industry standard for more than a decade.

History

PATA drives were initially designed by Western Digital in 1986 to provide a common drive interface technology.

Function

PATA drives serve as permanent data storage devices which hold all non-volatile data within a computer system such as, programs, system files and media.

Features

PATA drives have data transfer speeds of up to 133 MB/s and allow for up to 2 internal devices per drive channel.

Size

PATA drives come in standard sizes of 2.5- and 3.5-inch internal form factor devices.

Considerations

PATA hard drives have largely been replaced by the SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) drive specification. Although there is still support for these drives on most consumer level motherboards, it would be ill advised to build a new system based on this drive technology.

References

• Technical Committee T13 for AT devices
• Serial ATA International Organization