Difference between IDE, SATA and ATA?

[DJW]

I have some older ID full sized (3.5?) hard drives from desktop
computers laying around after I replaced then with larger versions. I
would like to put them in and external firewire / USB case. I was
looking on eBay asking if an IDE drive will fit certain boxes and a
few have said no that the case was for an SATA. I thought ATA and SATA
used the same connector and were backward compatible. Is there a site
that shows the internal connectors and explains what are IDE, SATA and
ATA?

 

[DJW]

ATA/IDE (now called PATA) and SATA both use a totally different cable
and are not compatible.

ok another follow up qustion if my hard drive I want to put in it is
4” wide by about 5 3/4” deep by about 1 “ thick. what size is it is it
called a 2.5, 3.5 or is it a 5.25?

 

[Paul]

ok another follow up qustion if my hard drive I want to put in it is
4” wide by about 5 3/4” deep by about 1 “ thick. what size is it is it
called a 2.5, 3.5 or is it a 5.25?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk_drive

Name: Width * Height * Length

8 inch: 9.5 in * 4.624 in * 14.25 in
5.25 inch: 5.75 in * 1.63 in * 8 in
3.5 inch: 4 in * 1 in * 5.75 in <---- your disk
2.5 inch: 2.75 in * 0.374-0.59 in * 3.945 in
1.8 inch: 54 mm * 8 mm * 71 mm

A desktop CDROM drive is a 5.25" drive device. Desktop
hard drives are 3.5". Laptop hard drives are 2.5". Just
some rough rules of thumb.

Laptop 2.5" drives have a 44 pin connector on 2mm spacing (extra 4 pins handle power)
Desktop 3.5" drives have a 40 pin connector on 0.1" spacing.

SATA drive devices of various sizes, may have 15 pin power, 7 pin data.

Extremely small SATA devices, use a different connector scheme, and
may require the user to find the right adapter (seen on small SSDs).
Here, you can see a microSATA SSD, with a regular SATA connector adapter
on the end.

http://www.digitalintelligence.com/cart/images/products/large_85_microsataadapter_med.jpg

HTH,
Paul