ide cables maximum length 65cm or longer?

[William.R.Reisen]

Hi,

I read somewhere that ide cables should only be 65cm long. There are
some cables that are 90cm long.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_IDE_151.html

Some are just plastic some have some metal braiding round that may
shield them. I have a full tower case the longer cables would be
great. I tried using a longer 90cm ide cable that didn't have metal
braid round it. I found with a gigabyte motherboard and a CD-ROM drive
attached through it. It kept on giving errors. When I switched back to
a 65cm long cable it worked fine.

Do you think that metal braided cables would make a difference?

 

[Timothy Daniels]

I read somewhere that ide cables should only be 65cm long. There are
some cables that are 90cm long.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_IDE_151.html

The web page says "0.45m", i.e. 45cm. Why do you think it's 90cm?

Some are just plastic some have some metal braiding round that may
shield them. I have a full tower case the longer cables would be
great. I tried using a longer 90cm ide cable that didn't have metal
braid round it. I found with a gigabyte motherboard and a CD-ROM drive
attached through it. It kept on giving errors. When I switched back to
a 65cm long cable it worked fine.

Do you think that metal braided cables would make a difference?

No. But try it and report your results here.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Adam S]

The web page says "0.45m", i.e. 45cm. Why do you think it's 90cm?

Scroll to the bottom of the page:

"Akasa Rounded Ultra ATA133/100/66 IDE Cable (0.9m) - Luminous Metal Braided
(CB-029-GE) "

 

[Arno Wagner]

Hi,

I read somewhere that ide cables should only be 65cm long. There are
some cables that are 90cm long.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_IDE_151.html

I tried some of these some time ago. I got so many CRC-errors on the
cable that the Linux Kernel decided the disks attached
must be defect and disabled them.

Some are just plastic some have some metal braiding round that may
shield them. I have a full tower case the longer cables would be
great. I tried using a longer 90cm ide cable that didn't have metal
braid round it. I found with a gigabyte motherboard and a CD-ROM drive
attached through it. It kept on giving errors. When I switched back to
a 65cm long cable it worked fine.

Do you think that metal braided cables would make a difference?

No.

Arno

 

[Wooducoodu]

actually ide cables weren't meant to be more than 45cm long. better quality
cables or flat cables might have a better chance of working at that length.

 

[Peter]

SFF-8049 standard for IDE cables says clearly: 18 inches maximum cable
length.
There had been some relaxed standards for CD-ROM devices, but they do not
apply if you connect a hard drive.
It is like overclocking your CPU. It might work - sometimes. For CPU, you
must combat the heat, for long cables - improve signal propagation. Here are
some ideas what to look for:
http://bwcecom.belden.com/catalog/TechInfo/TechReducing.htm

 

[Hamman]

Hi,

I read somewhere that ide cables should only be 65cm long. There are
some cables that are 90cm long.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_IDE_151.html

Some are just plastic some have some metal braiding round that may
shield them. I have a full tower case the longer cables would be
great. I tried using a longer 90cm ide cable that didn't have metal
braid round it. I found with a gigabyte motherboard and a CD-ROM drive
attached through it. It kept on giving errors. When I switched back to
a 65cm long cable it worked fine.

I have 2 of them in my somewhat large server as the IDE route is all the way
around the centrally mounted mobo pan.

After copying 40GB of files over one and then out across the other there are
no errors, one is braided, the other is red platic. Both werep urchased from
OcUK

hamman

 

[Timothy Daniels]

Scroll to the bottom of the page:

Cute. Last night the page had only the 1st image and it wouldn't scroll.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

SFF-8049 standard for IDE cables says clearly: 18 inches maximum cable
length.

There had been some relaxed standards for CD-ROM devices, but they do
not apply if you connect a hard drive.

Oh!? Care to tell us where it says that?

 

[Peter]

Oh!? Care to tell us where it says that?

Maybe here, I don't remember exactly where I have seen that:
http://www.buildorbuy.org/cabling.html

BTW, ATA-ATAPI-7 standard for cables can be found here:
http://www.t13.org/docs2004/d1532v2r4b-ATA-ATAPI-7.pdf
It says that 18 inch is maximum cable length.