IDE's basic design is limited to magnetic media and does not work for tape, optical, or CD-ROM devices. PC vendors have addressed IDE's problems with an Enhanced IDE specification, which supports more drive units, greater throughput, and higher-capacity mechanisms. It also permits easier attachment of CD-ROM drives. The Enhanced IDE Interface is also known as the ATA (AT attachment) Interface.
Apple's implementation of the ATA interface is a subset of the ATA interface specification, ANSI proposal X3T9.2/90-143. Revision 3.1. Current IDE capable Macintosh systems support IDE drives that include a feature called Logical Block Addressing (LBA). LBA is the method that drive manufacturers have adopted in order to go beyond the 520 MB DOS-BIOS limit.
In summary, the Apple IDE Interface supports IDE and Enhanced IDE drives. However, any IDE drive that is going to be used on Macintosh computers must support Logical Block Addressing (LBA).
*The following information is for Apple Internal & Support Providers Only*
Apple's implementation of the ATA interface is a subset of the ATA interface specification, ANSI proposal X3T9.2/90-143. Revision 3.1. Current IDE capable Macintosh systems support IDE drives that include a feature called Logical Block Addressing (LBA). LBA is the method that drive manufacturers have adopted in order to go beyond the 520 MB DOS-BIOS limit.
In summary, the Apple IDE Interface supports IDE and Enhanced IDE drives. However, any IDE drive that is going to be used on Macintosh computers must support Logical Block Addressing (LBA).
*The following information is for Apple Internal & Support Providers Only*