[lug] low profile, long IDE cables?

[Jeffrey Siegal]

On Sep 7, 2005, at 12:32 , D. Stimits wrote:

>> With regular PATA cables you can split the ribbon between every 4  
>> to 6
>> conductors and then stack the mini-ribbons to make a cable run that
>> approaches more the size of a SATA cable.  This will cut down some  
>> on the
>> length at each connector due to fan-out.
>
> Unfortunately the route it must travel would still make this too  
> long. Interesting idea though, I wonder what effect splitting has  
> on noise and maximum length. The first time anyone runs into a  
> cable length problem though, it's an eye opener...it made me  
> realize there are probably a huge number of tower cases out there  
> that can't actually use IDE in all of their bays. SCSI looks better  
> every time I look at it, but for cdroms there really isn't much  
> choice, especially if using it as an install device...it's an IDE  
> world.

This is one advantage of SATA over PATA -- longer cable length.  Also  
the cables are less fragile, less susceptible to poor manufacturing  
quality, etc.