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ATA133 Controllers Have Arrived
Spot writes "If you're a hardware junkie, then you may already know ATA133 is on it's way to becoming the new standard for drive controllers. LittleWhiteDog has a very detailed look into the Promise Ultra133 TX2 Controller and Maxtor's D740X-6L ATA133 interface drive. " And I just bought a few 100g drives :) I still find it funny that every couple years I buy new hard drives always for around $200... 120 megs, 800 megs, 2.5G, 12G, 30G, 100G. I love this.
SCSI is dead.
For most consumer and single-user environments, IDE is plenty fast enough. Even in the small server market, IDE is adequate. In the high-end server market, people are moving away from SCSI in favor of Fibre Channel.
IDE is squeezing SCSI out of the low end, while Firbre Channel is doing the same to SCSI in the high end. SCSI won't be around as a serious disk option for much longer, I suspect.
(Not to mention that USB has killed SCSI for things like scanners.)
It's the worst possible standard for a drive interface.
If that's how you feel, I pity you. While I'm doing that, I'll see how many RLL or MFM drives you have in your PC right now, and if you have none, I'm gonna smack you.
The truth is that IDE was a godsend for anybody who wanted a hard drive in their PC. The fact that their interface came standard in any bios, the fact that you didn't have to worry about whether your new drive would work on your old controller (or your old drive on your new controller) were revolutionary, as was the incredible speed you could achieve without worrying about interleaving your drice. The price was right as well. IDE had what it took to become a dominant standard, and anybody who thinks differently is just spewing SCSI loving garbage(note:I have nothing against SCSI, but it has never had the price advantage, the compatibility advantage or the ease of installation which made IDE so popular.)
Basically, until you have tried to troubleshoot an MFM or RLL drive, you can keep your mouth shut and quit bitching. There were plenty of standards which are far worse than IDE.
It's been a long time.