IDE stands for Integrated Drive Electronics. This refers to a type of hard disk drive. In the past, the electronic circuits necessary to control a hard drive were located on a circuit board attached to the computer’s main board, or mother board, while the drive itself contained mostly mechanical parts. In modern hard drives, however, both the mechanical and electronic components are integrated into the drive itself, and the controller board is merely a connection between the main board and the drive. This type of hard drive is called an IDE drive, and was the most common type until the introduction of SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) in 2003.
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