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Date |
: Feb 26th, 2001 |
| Category |
: Case Modding |
| Manufacturer |
: HighSpeed PC |
| Author |
: Jin-Wei Tioh |
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HighSpeed PC ships their rounded IDE & floppy cables in sealed plastic bags, just like any normal flat IDE/floppy cables.
The rounded IDE cable is 18" in length, and is well protected by flexible rubber sheathings. Scott sent over the green version, but for those of you who have other color preferences, he has these in red and blue flavors as well, which have just become available. The cable is well machined, and is compatible with the ATA-33/66/100 protocols. What about the performance of these cables? Do they affect transfer rates? In short, not really, no. Running our benchmarks on a Seagate Barracuda ATA using both a generic and the HighSpeed PC rounded cable, there was absolutely no difference in the results obtained.
Probably the most important question would be crosstalk, which can potentially corrupt data transfers. The ATA-66/100 specs call for 80 cables (versus the ATA-33's 40). It basically adds 40 ground wires, arranged alternately with the original 40 signal and ground wires, to reduce the likelihood of this phenomena. ATA-66/100 has tighter timing specs, and hence, less error tolerance. As another margin of safety, manufacturers have also implemented Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) error detection code in their drives. The CRC code will force a transfer retry if it finds any errors. From the Barracuda ATA benchmark results, we can also conclude that there is no crosstalk on the rounded IDE cable. If there was, there would be more transfer retries which would lower the benchmark scores.
The rounded floppy cable is 24" in length and is available in yellow and green flavors. The cable's length reflects thoughtful consideration. Some of us have very tall cases, or we have to install the FDD in the top bay. It stretches from top to bottom of the SuperMicro SC-750A, no small case by anyone's standards. This cable is more vanity oriented as individual, exposed colored strands are used. However, it isn't as well protected as the rounded IDE cable. The rubber sheathing isn't nearly as thick, and there are no rubber "headers". In place of them are thin sheets of transparent plastic with separators which, while holding the individual strands firmly in place, does little to protect them from shearing. On the flip side, the exposed strands do add a touch more of color to your relatively monochromatic case.
So what are the benefits of these cables? For one, they make the inside of your case look well, more vibrant. Most importantly, they have a small footprint, which gives you a less cramped working space and reduced cable clutter. In turn, this improves both the airflow within the case and your health (via less stress :). Here are before and after pictures.
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