Where to get Rounded IDE cables

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jookz

Junior Member
Aug 16, 2002
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I'm looking to get a good deal on the Rounded IDE cables to help increase the airflow inside my case. The cables need to be ATA 133 compatible. Where should I go to get the best price? I also want a floppy drive cable.
 
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trikster2

Banned
Oct 28, 2000
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The best round cables are those new Serial ATA Cables.

Was going to upgrade my hard drive and cables but decided not to spend another penny until those cool Serial ATA controlers/cables are available.

If you sticking with your legacy hardware, I purchased and did not like the SVC plastic cables. They are unshielded and have no pull tabs. Newegg has some coolermaster cables for a few dollars more that are sheilded and have pull tabs....



 
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TheWart

Diamond Member
Dec 17, 2000
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I would just be sure to get the cables that have the little "booty" on the end because it protects them when taking them on and off.
 
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Bharat

Member
May 26, 2002
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Of course, the one thing you might want to remember is NOT to get too long a cable, as there seems to be an issue with reliability. I personally bought myself some nice 36" ones and had strange problems. I believe 18" is the ideal recommendation.
 
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DongTran

Platinum Member
Jan 2, 2001
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Originally posted by: Bharat
Of course, the one thing you might want to remember is NOT to get too long a cable, as there seems to be an issue with reliability. I personally bought myself some nice 36" ones and had strange problems. I believe 18" is the ideal recommendation.
Click to expand...

IDE spec calls for a maximum length for ANY ATA interface is 475mm, (is it 475 or 457?) roughly 18 inches. longer cables will result in longer end-to-end signal delays. sure your bus may be 100 million pulses per second at nearly the speed of light (ATA 100), but remember that electronic signals cannot travel down the wire two directions simultaneously.

also, IDE is unshielded. You can make a really good radio antenna out of your 36" IDE cable :)

EDIT:
TYPICALLY IDE is unshielded. I have never seen a shielded IDE cable, until I was checking out this review
 
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MrThompson

Senior member
Jun 24, 2001
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I love this quote from the CoolerMaster cable review.

The cables are also covered in an aluminium foil to minimise magnetic interference.
Click to expand...

Aluminum will not shield magnetic fields. Unless the shield is grounded, it's useless. The cables look nice though.

While I won't use rounded SCSI cables (Granite Digital only please), I have several of the SVC rounded cables. They perform just fine. SVC's prices and customer service are excellent.
 
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blade

1957 - 2008<br>Elite Moderator Emeritus<br>Troll H
Oct 9, 1999
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I did receive these in. The 28" ones. They do have a ground wire you connect to metal. So far on one system my sandra scores went up just 200 points. From reading that other review I was expecting 5-700 more.

But I need to test them in my main system.
 
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MrThompson

Senior member
Jun 24, 2001
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Blade ? That?s a slick cable you found. It?s the first one I have seen that takes advantage of transmission line theory by grounding the shield at the load. I think I?m going to have to try some.
 
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DongTran

Platinum Member
Jan 2, 2001
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wow imagine if i decided to get those. 5x$20 = $100 for ide cables!!!! that's a lot of cheeseburgers....
 
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MercenaryForHire

Lifer
Jan 31, 2002
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Originally posted by: MrThompson
Aluminum will not shield magnetic fields. Unless the shield is grounded, it's useless. The cables look nice though.
Click to expand...

So should we all be wrapping our cables in tinfoil and grounding them? :D

I read an article about this - haven't tried it - but just folding the cables into a W (in half, then each half in half) and then ziptying / duct taping apparently doesn't cause signal loss, and is a lot easier than trying to Xacto knife your current flat cable.

Either way, time to add some tinfoil to my ghetto case.

- M4H
 
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trikster2

Banned
Oct 28, 2000
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Before spending $100 on cables look into SerialATA.

Adapters should be available by the end of the year, Speed is starting at 150M/b a second (if you have a SerialATA hard drive), the cables make rounded cables look like tanks, and their will be adapters to use SerialATA with your current hard drives.

If I HAD to build the best system today I would definitely look at the cables Blade pointed at. Not for everything but definitely for my primary hard drive (that is if Blade ever gets benchmarks that show similar improvements, the Benchies on the site look almost unbelievable OR that guy has his computer set up in a microwave).

 
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Slickone

Diamond Member
Dec 31, 1999
6,120
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blade, I asked about the Gladiator cables a little while back here, but got no replies.
Here's another thread I asked in. These are archived messages. Are you happy with yours?

$20 is a lot, but I think the first store in the US I've heard of selling them, and I think they were more expensive at the other (outside US) stores. Also if you only have once hard drive, you probably only need one of these, and use a regular rounded cable for your secondary IDE (CDROM, etc).


trikster2, shielding only prevents crosstalk, correct? Think it's OK to only use the cheapy $5 (SVC) cables on CDROM, CDRW, and floppy? Then a good one (maybe the Gladiator 3) on the HDD? Newegg sure doesn't have many color choices.

I wish Serial ATA would show up quicker. Looks like next year. Here's a review.
 
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DongTran

Platinum Member
Jan 2, 2001
2,277
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Originally posted by: trikster2
Before spending $100 on cables look into SerialATA.

Adapters should be available by the end of the year, Speed is starting at 150M/b a second (if you have a SerialATA hard drive), the cables make rounded cables look like tanks, and their will be adapters to use SerialATA with your current hard drives.

If I HAD to build the best system today I would definitely look at the cables Blade pointed at. Not for everything but definitely for my primary hard drive (that is if Blade ever gets benchmarks that show similar improvements, the Benchies on the site look almost unbelievable OR that guy has his computer set up in a microwave).
Click to expand...

Yes, there is that NOW thing that we have to worry about :)

Text
 
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blade

1957 - 2008<br>Elite Moderator Emeritus<br>Troll H
Oct 9, 1999
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Go here for pics and test results. Ones marked with an "x" at the end is the smaller pic.

You tell me about the results. It is some improvement but I believe results may vary from system to system. Others I've talked to did get from 200-700 points better in sandra.


Also consider I was sent the longer 28" cables, results might be better using the shorter 20" ones.
 
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Slickone

Diamond Member
Dec 31, 1999
6,120
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From the Toms Hardware Serial ATA review I linked to above:
The benchmarks do not show the current performance potential of Serial ATA. On the one hand, all available controllers are linked through the PCI bus, which limits the maximum transfer rate to approximately 100 MByte/s - that's as fast as the PCI bus will allow. On the other hand, the performance of the prototype is based solely on the performance on the equivalent conventional ATA drive, which was a limiting factor.

So unless a Serial ATA controller card is less than say $20 (just to use now until the mobo's come out), personally I'd stick w/ IDE until then.
 
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Biggs

Diamond Member
Dec 18, 2000
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Friends,

Would you think the "standard" SATA cable would provide better EMI rejection, grounding, and overall effcient data transfer than the Gladiator cable?


Cheers,
Biggs
 
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