IDE

Stands for "Integrated Device Electronics." It is the most widely-used hard drive interface on the market. The fancy name refers to how the IDE technology "integrates" the electronics controller into the drive itself. The IDE interface, which could only support drives up to 540 MB has been replaced by the superior EIDE (Enhanced-IDE) technology which supports over 50 GB and allows for over twice as fast data transfer rates. The other most common hard drive interface is SCSI, which is faster than EIDE, but usually costs more. For a further explanation on the differences between IDE and SCSI, check the Help Center .