Disk drives store data, and in order for any device on the system to access them, (such as the RAM), there must be some coordination.

The drive controllers manage this, and all basic mid-level disk access functions. Most disks are smart enough now to do their own reading and writing and even caching of data to speed up access.

On a mainboard there is usually 1 floppy controller that can handle any two 5.25" or 3.5" drives. There is also a primary and secondary IDE drive controller for the hard disks, CD-ROMs etc. Both the Primary and Secondary IDE channels can manage two disks, for a total of 4 possible IDE devices.

DRIVE CONTROLLER TYPES

• FLOPPY DISK
  • 5.25"
  • 3.5"
• FIXED DISK
  • IDE / EIDE
    • UDMA 33
    • UDMA 66
    • UDMA 100
    • UDMA 133
  • SCSI
    • Wide
    • Ultra-Wide
  • RAID

 

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