ATA Standard History

ATA (AT attachment) - standard, which determines physical, electrical, transport and command protocols for data storage devices connection with the main system (computer), which has been applied in personal computers since 1989. The development of the standard is carried out by NCITS committee (National Committee for Information Technology Standards) - T13. The standard is confirmed by NCITS, as well as on behalf of ANSI (American National Standards Institute). New versions of ATA/ATAPI support compatibility with previous ones providing opportunity for the connection of all devices compatible with ATA/ATAPI. Hard disk drives manufacturers often produce models which support either functionality in spite of the fact that it has not officially approved in the standard yet.

ATA-1
Was canceled in 1999.

ATA-2
PIO-4 and Multiword data transfer protocols DMA-2, block data transfer, logical blocks addressing (LBA), additional signals (IORDY, CSEL), engine shutdown commands, capability of data transfer control by CRC algorithm. Was canceled in 2001.

ATA-3
SMART and support of the access restriction. The LBA mode became required. Was canceled in 2002.

ATA/ATAPI-4
HPA (protected data area), "enhanced security erase", APM (advanced power-saving), commands overlapping, command queuing optimization (TCQ), Ultra DMA-2 protocol (33 MBytes/s), ATAPI (ATA Packet Interface) - the standard created in order to provide the opportunity of CD-ROM connection to the standard ATA connector that has simplified connection to CD-ROM and has made it possible to reduce their cost. The obsolete commands were deleted - "Format track", "Read/Write long", "Write verify".

ATA/ATAPI-5
Ultra DMA-3 (44 MBytes/s) and Ultra DMA-4 (66 MBytes/s) protocols.

ATA/ATAPI-6
Support of volume greater than 128 МBytes provided by increasing LBA size from 28 to 48 bits, Ultra DMA-5 (100 MBytes/s) protocol, commands of audio/video streams support (increased volume of information passed by one command from 131 KBytes to 33 MBytes), AAM (automatic acoustic management), extended SMART journals, deletion of CHS addressing.

ATA/ATAPI-7
Ultra DMA-6 (133 Mbytes/s) protocol, extended SMART self-testing modes (Selective, Conveyance), support of extended SMART journals, version of ATA series interface - SATA.

ATA/ATAPI-8
Trusted computing feature, free fall sensor, "Write-Read-Verify" feature, additional hard disk drive parameters management and enhanced data reading protocol (SCT Command Transport), flash memory with power-saving management capability (NV Cache, NV Cache Power Mode), nominal spindle motor rotation rate, time to spin up of the magnetic plates to the nominal velocity in seconds, WRITE UNCORRECTABLE EXT command.