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the way data is transferred from and to the IDE drive and the
mainboard.
What is the PIO mode? When the system needs to access hard disk
data, the CPU delivers input/output (I/O) orders through the chipset
on the mainboard to the hard disk drive, and than puts the se data
into the system memory. This is the PIO mode.
What is the Master mode? When the system needs to access hard
disk data, these data are directly accessed from the hard disk by the
chipset on the mainboard (using a DMA or a PIO mode), and then
the data is put into the memory. In this case, the CPU does not
participate in the data transfer.
What is the DMA mode? Usually, DMA mode refers to accessing
the hard disk data by the chipset, it does not refers to data transfer
mode.
Here are some examples of data transfer rates for IDE HDD
with PIO interface:
PIO Mode 0 The fastest data transfer rate reaches
3.3Mbyte/sec
PIO Mode 1 The fastest data transfer rate reaches
5.2Mbyte/sec
PIO Mode 2 The fastest data transfer rate reaches
8.3Mbyte/sec
PIO Mode 3 The fastest data transfer rate reaches
11.1Mbyte/sec
PIO Mode 4 The fastest data transfer rate reaches
16.6Mbyte/sec
The higher the MODE value is, the best is the hard disk data
transfer rate. But this does not mean that you can select the highest
mode value as you like. You must be sure that your hard disk
supports that type of fast data transfer, otherwise your hard disk
will not be able to operate correctly.
Here are some examples of data transfer rates for IDE HDD
with DMA mode:
