Parallel Advanced Technology Attachment is a legacy interface standard used to connect hard drives and optical drives to computer motherboards. It uses a wide, flat ribbon cable with 40 or 80 wires to transmit data in parallel. It was originally known simply as ATA or IDE, but was retroactively renamed when serial equivalents were introduced.
We need an adapter to pull data off this old drive because the new motherboard doesn't have a PATA header.
Also heard as
- Parallel ATA
- IDE
- EIDE
Do not mix it up with
- SATA: PATA uses parallel signaling over wide ribbon cables, while SATA uses serial signaling over narrow cables.
Related terms
SATA
A common computer bus interface used to connect host bus adapters to mass storage devices.
IDE
An older interface standard used to connect storage devices to computer motherboards.
EIDE
Extended Integrated Drive Electronics was a standard interface for connecting storage drives.
Hard drive
An electromechanical data storage device containing spinning magnetic platters.