The main issue is which device will be used for booting the system. Under MSDOS, The system BIOS determined this completely. A couple third party BIOSes (like MRBIOS) allowed the user to choose the boot source, but most conventional BIOSes just booted from the IDE if it was present. If no IDE was present then the standard option card BIOS scan would find the SCSI card's BIOS and use it to boot. Under Windows 95 and Windows NT, there are more options.

Inexpensive due to high volume of production and simplified firmwar development and testing requirements. Very limited device attachment (two drives (including CDROMs) per channel, and two channels per system max.) (Recent versions of Linux (and I hear Win NT) support four or more ATA adapters) CPU is tied up transferring all data (actually newer EIDE controllers can do DMA as well if special drivers are loaded) All commands can overlap with commands on other devices.

Currently Honeywall works on IDE drives only. You can configure IDE drive from Advanced Virtual Disk options in VMware. Future version of Honeywall CDROm should support SCSI. Normally, you get an allocation resource error when VMware is not able to properly communicate with the host devices. The error can be ignored, as it doesn't stop Honeywall from booting.

All sizes of EIDE compatible drives are supported, however only the first 137gb of each drive are addressable.

During the creation of A1, after 'gathering additional device files', I get the following error message: Using AIR-BAG diskettes to restore my system or restore to another system, the following error occurs after hitting return at the Boot: on the first diskette. When I create my AIR-BAG diskettes, the creation hangs when creating the A2 in the middle putting the files on the diskette.

While not native, SAS hard drives can be used on SATA desktops and workstations by adding a host bus adapter.

No software of any sort can truly low-level format today's modern drives. The ability to low-level format hard drives was lost back in the early 1990's when disc surfaces began incorporating factory written "embedded servo data". If you have a very old drive that can truly be low-level reformatted, SpinRite v5.0 will do that for you (which all v6.0 owners are welcome to download and run anytime).

We recommend using the newer ATA 66/100/133 cables in order to achieve the best system performance. These ATA cables have 3 colored connectors with each connector having a specific purpose. Be sure to plug the correct connector into the appropriate device. The black connector at the other end is for your master device, usually the hard drive you boot from.

The primary difference is that SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) has a processor built into the drive which allows for faster read / writes. IDE drives rely on the CPU. SCSI may be beneficial to you if you are planning to run a database or other resource intensive application. An IDE drive is suitable for standard web serving. RAID Level 5 provides you with the redundancy necessary to recover from a single hard drive failure.

If so, then you've come to the right place, comment on this post and your question will be added to the list to be answered. Of course, depending on the nature of your comment, and the volume of comments received, we may not get to every question.

Yes, the chipset is capable of supporting independent IDE device timings. Although, if the hard drives are mixed they may run at the slowest Ultra DMA protocol depending on whether you are using the native operating system IDE driver or Intel® Application Accelerator. Intel® Application Accelerator allows each device to run at its optimal timings. Check with your OS provider to see if their native IDE driver supports independent timings for IDE devices.

Please spare us all the aggravation of the week long tirade that will result from asking this seemingly innocent question!

Ultra ATA functionality was phased in about the time 2-Gbyte drives became common in new computers. All currently manufactured Seagate ATA drives support Ultra ATA. For specific drive information, please refer to our Disc Drive Encyclopedia.

SCSI stands for Small Computer System Interface. It's a standard for connecting peripherals to your computer via a standard hardware interface, which uses standard SCSI commands. The SCSI standard can be divided into SCSI (SCSI1) and SCSI2 (SCSI wide and SCSI wide and fast) and now SCSI-3 which is made up of at least 14 separate standards documents.

This is a tough one to answer, instead we have made a performance Matrix that gives comparative analysis of drive performance parameters and features with their prices, so that an accurate decision can be made based on performance / price comparisions.

The FileZerver IDE/SCSI model has two ULTRA ATA/33 channels, while the IDE only model has two Ultra ATA/33 and four Ultra ATA/100 channels.

If your ATAPI PlexWriter is not seen at boot-up, or in the Device Manager within Windows, verify that the IDE controller on your motherboard BIOS is set to AUTO. Check your motherboard manufacturer's website, or refer to your motherboard manual for assistance in making changes to your BIOS.

Yes, if the source disk is bootable on multiple machines, then it's DPSR drive is bootable on the same machines. Windows usually locks it's installation to the system it was originally installed on, so moving an installation to a different machine usually results in Windows not booting correctly. We believe this to be an excellent way to quickly and easily carry your "work" back and forth from the office to the home.

Again like the MCA versus ISA/EISA/VLB/PCI debate. There is what is better in theory and what is better in real life. ESDI is a dead standard with much faster and larger capacity, cheaper IDE drives out there, though it had the possibility of being the fastest. Unfortunately in the PS/2 arena you usually can't chose IDE which with the newer versions offers almost all of the speed of the best SCSI drives and still is the fastest single user, single task OS drive there is.

For someone to who doesn't need a real multi-tasking workstation or server, the only reason for paying the extra money for SCSI is flexibility. EIDE/ATA is strictly for "inside the case" peripherals. SCSI allows you to attach a large collection of add-ons like scanners, CD recorders, tape drives (or even devices not conceived of yet), either inside or outside the CPU case in whatever manner suits your needs or wishes.

SAS complements SATA by adding dual porting, full duplex and device addressing, plus it offers higher reliability, performance and data availability services, as well as logical SCSI compatibility. STA will continue to enhance these metrics as the specification evolves, including increased device support and longer cabling distances.

EIDE, SCSI, or Serial ATA (SATA) drive is not recognized during the installation of Windows NT/2000/XP. The installer reports that there is no drive present for the Windows installation, even though the controller recognizes the drive. The drive may not be detected during the installation of Windows because you have not yet loaded the drivers for your EIDE, SCSI, or SATA controller.

It depends on your preference and budget. An ATA will allow you to use analog phones for VoIP. While this might save money, they do not have one touch feature keys (e.g. transfer, hold, etc). On the other hand, using IP phones will provide more features that are similar to digital phones.

Hands-on Lab exercises, implementing the installation of network, software configurations, system administration etc.

SHH Systeme makes several IDE controller cards for the Apple II family; they claim to be as fast to faster than the RamFAST card.See http://users.ids.net/~kerwood/shh.html, or contact jlange@tasha.muc.de for details like technical specs, pricing, and S/H procedure. Their Microdrive card supported only 256MB of capacity per drive, and 2 drives per card. The MicroDrive/Turbo supports 2GB per drive and 2 drives per card.

Note (added on 2nd Dec 1998): This list really needs a complete overhaul, which I am hoping to carry out, now that I have taken over the FAQ from Philip. Please keep an eye out for announcements of any updates. In the meantime, please feel free to notify me of any additions/amendments to the information provided below. Here is a list of IDE drives known to either work or not work with Acorn hardware. If the drive appears with no notes then it will work fine with the machine specified.