by cfitz on Thu Feb 13, 2003 12:01 pm
No - The fastest interface used on CD-RW drives is UDMA 2 (33 MBytes/sec). According to UDMA standards, use of 80-conductor UDMA cable is optional for UDMA 2 and lower.
Yes - Although not required by the standards in CD-RW usage, 80-conductor cable does provide improved EMI resistance and thus greater signal integrity. In cases that are particularly noisy (electrically speaking), it may prevent data errors on the IDE bus.
cfitz