Firms face ATA hard disk chaos

Two different interface standards likely

IT managers may soon be suffering the headache of two different interface standards for PC hard drives.

Maxtor last week unveiled its Ultra ATA 133 interface, capable of transferring data at up to 133Mbps. Hard drives are expected later this year.

But Intel and disk vendors including Seagate are backing the 150Mbps Serial ATA as the next-generation PC disk interface, expected to appear next year.

Ultra ATA 133, branded as Fast Drives technology by Maxtor, is backwards-compatible with the current Ultra ATA 100 standard, using the same cables.

Silicon vendors VIA and SiS have already licensed the technology for use in motherboard chipsets, according to Maxtor.

Intel plans to build Serial ATA into future motherboard chipsets, but this may be delayed until 2003. Serial ATA is not compatible with current drives.