Tag Archives: Drives

Q: What old generations of RAM memory are the same speed as drives?

A: RAM, of any generation, has always been much faster than hard drives or SSD drives, and RAM continues to be faster. There are several reasons. Bus access: RAM is on a bus that is much ‘closer’ to the CPU … Continue reading

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USB 3.1 and USB Type C: What *is* that port?

The latest iteration of the USB standard is making its way onto motherboards and into notebooks.  With USB 3.1 Type A connectors and USB C (or Type C) connectors, 5 Gbps and 10 Gbps, we have a bit of ‘splaining … Continue reading

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What is the state of Thunderbolt drives? (October 2014 edition)

Thunderbolt drive news (Note 4/2020, many of the products introduced in 2014 are now out of date in 2020) Apple has left Firewire and adopted Thunderbolt as their recommended high speed connection for external hard drives (and monitors and other … Continue reading

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Q. What is the difference between SATA and PATA?

Serial ATA (SATA) and Parallel ATA (PATA) are two different (and incompatible) connection standards for hard drives, optical drives and other storage media. PATA is also called IDE, EIDE, ATA-5, ATA-6 and UltraATA. It uses a 40 pin (desktop) or … Continue reading

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