Question with ATA133 and rounded cables - Data integrity issues?

[RaiderJ]

This might just be a rumor, but it would throw a wrench into my plans if it is true: Do rounded cables cause data problems with ATA133 drives?

I can't think of a reason why rounded cables would have problems, but flat cables would not. Is there something I'm missing?

 

[bozo1]

Don't know if it's true or not, but with ATA66/100/133, the extra 40 wires are grounds to shield neighboring wires from crosstalk. When you roll them up, one would think that you increase the chance of crosstalk.

 

[InsaneMorphius]

I really dont think there is any. AFAIK I have not seen any 133 cables, only 100 which support 133 🙂

 

[Mem]

<< Do rounded cables cause data problems with ATA133 drives? >>




Using round cables with my Maxtor D740X(ATA133),I don`t have any problems at all,I would recommend you don`t get the really long rounded cable leads since the longer the lead the more chance there`s possible data corruption,but it does depend on the quality of the lead etc.

 

[cbuchach]

Actually my new round cables have resulted in much better hard drive performance. I upgraded to some 12" single devices round ATA133 IDE cables from some old crappy 80 wire, 2 device cables. I didn't at all expect there to be ANY performance difference. But I was wrong. The drives are on a RAID array, and it never seemed to benchmark as Sandra said it should bench (it was too slow). After I installed the new drive cables, the benchmarks are now right where they should be and my max transfer rate tested with Winbench went up about 8 MB/s!

So, round cables do not hurt performance, and if anything, quality cables could actually give you a performance boost!!

 

[cbuchach]

Oh, the cables I purchased and am referring to can be found here.