Description
This item is from the Yet Another
Enhanced IDE/Fast-ATA/ATA-2 FAQ, by John Wehman and Peter den
Haan with numerous contributions by others. (v1.92).
08.09. Can my drive do 32-bit access?
There appears to be an awful lot of confusion about this subject,
partly due to some unhappy terminology.
In the most literal sense, no ATA(-2,-PI) drive will allow 32-bit
access. Data is transferred to and from the drive over a 16 bit bus.
However, many local bus interfaces are capable of combining two 16-bit
words into a 32-bit doubleword when reading data from the disk, and
the reverse when writing. This way, data transfer between the CPU and
the interface can be done in 32-bit chunks. This is often called
'32-bit access', although '32-bit host bus transfers' would be a
better name.
With 32-bit host bus transfers, more efficient use is made of the
computer's bus and CPU. On the other hand, these are seldom the
bottleneck, so don't expect miracles from this feature. Windows'
32-bit disk and file access are completely unrelated issues and the
subject of question 8.10 and 8.11.
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pc, hardware, faq, frequently asked questions, repair, computer, IDE, Fast-ATA, ATA-2, harddisk, hd
