IDE devices use a ribbon cable to connect to each other. Ribbon cables have all of the wires laid flat next to each other instead of bunched or wrapped together in a bundle. IDE ribbon cables have either 40 or 80 wires. ATA's ribbon cables had 40 wires for most of its history, but an 80-wire version appeared with the introduction of the Ultra DMA/33 (UDMA) mode. Each cable has two or three connectors, one of which plugs into an adapter interfacing with the rest of the computer system. The remaining connector(s) plug into drives.
Answered by R.P. Singh
at
5:50 PM on July 23, 2008