Okay guys.. don't get me started, but.. the only thing "cheap" about ATA (a form of "IDE", just like SCSI is..) is the price. The drives are the exact same hardware models, with different connectors and different firmware loads, but everything about them flys and is as reliable as anything else.

There's just a LOT more of them out there, which is why one hears a lot more failure stories. Not to mention that people are reluctant to make a fool of themselves by posting failure stories about hardware they paid double (or more) for..

The big differences compared with the alternatives (primarily SCSI) are:
(1) ATA is typically half the cost, or less,
(2) driver makers "differentiate" their product lines by reserving the faster spin-rate mechanisms for SCSI-only, as otherwise nobody would pay the premium.
(3) max two drives per channel on most ATA implementations, versus more on SCSI cables. But in a high end server, you really want as few drives per cable as possible, regardless of the protocol used.

Cheers