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ATA-1
The original ATA-1 supported up to 2 drives. It also introduced the ability to have a BIOS that supports hard drives. The limit of space on the hard drives were only 504 MB -
Period: to
ATA progression
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ATA-2
The new features of the ATA-2 were called the enhanced IDE (EIDE). The ATA-2 provided higher capacities, support for non-hard drive storage devices, support for 2 more ATA devices so that there is a total of 4. There was also an improved throughput. -
ATA-3
The new feature that ATA-3 added to the ATA standard was S.M.A.R.T. (self monitoring, analysis, and reporting technology. SMART helped predict when a hard drive was going to fail by monitoring its mechanical components. -
ATA-4
ATA-4 had introduced a new DMA feature called ultra DMA. Ultra DMA uses DMA bus mastering to achieve faster speeds than with the old DMA. The three ultra DMA modes are: mode 0: 16.7 MBps
mode 1: 25.0 MBps
mode 2: 33.3 MBps -
ATA-5
The ATA-5 introduced 2 new types of ultra DMA. Mode 3: 44.4 MBps
Mode 4: 66.6 MBps These new modes were so fast that they needed the new 80-wire cable for the hard drives. -
ATA-6
ATA-6 enabled for drives to transfer up to 65,536 sectors in one chunk.
It also released one more ultra DMA mode: Mode 5: 100 MBps transfer rate. -
ATA-7
The ATA-7 released the new serial ATA (SATA). The SATA came with a new, thinner and faster cable. The new small design allowed for better airflow. These were also much longer than the original old wires, These new wires had a single throughput, but are 30 times faster than the old cables.