ATA-2 / EIDE / Fast ATA / Fast IDE / Ultra ATA
ATA-2 is often referred to as EIDE and at times the Fast ATA or Fast IDE was a standard that was approved in 1996 by ANSI. It was during this time that ATA-2 introduced the new PIO modes of 3 and 4.
It is characterized with a transfer rate of up to 16.6 MBps.
It supports DMA modes 1 and 2and LBA support.
It also supports disks up to 8.4 GB.
ATA-3 / EIDE
This is also a standard that was approved in 1997 by ANSI. Additional security features and also the new S.M.A.R.T feature are provided in this.
ATA-4 / ATAPI-4 / ATA/ATAPI-4
In 1998, ANSI approved ATA-4. This included the ATAPI packet command feature and introduced UDMA/33 also known as ultra-DMA/33 or ultra-ATA/33 that supported data transfer rates of up to 33 MBps.
