Round IDE & Floppy Cables

Company: CrazyPC & OCZ
Product: Round ATA/100 & Floppy Cables
Street Price: ~ $15-$20
Date Reviewed: March 2, 2001
Reviewed By: Jason Rabel

So What's The Scoop?:

Everyone likes a neat and tidy case, right? Sure it all starts out nice and neat, but after you put in all your hard drives, CD-ROMs, Zip, CD Burner, etc, it really starts to get messy in there. You can bend and fold and squish cables in the corners to try and get it looking nice and have decent airflow, but why settle for that when you can have some professionally made round cables that add the finishing touch to any case mod.

Many people have fashioned their own rounded cables by splicing the cables, then using anything from zip-ties to spiral cable wrap to bundle the cables together. This method will work for floppy, the older style IDE cables, and I've even done it to my 50 pin SCSI cable. However, the newer ATA/100 cables are next to impossible to try and splice.

These rounded cables come in several different colors and lengths to fit just about any application. Let me give you a little overview of each cable, and show you how it fits in my mid-tower case.

Round ATA/100 IDE Cable:

The IDE cables I received from CrazyPC & OCZ were green, however I've noticed that CrazyPC now offers them in blue too. These cables are super nice professionally made products. The 18" cables seem to be the standard that everyone is carrying (pictured below), which is more than adequate for any case. However if you really need something longer, CrazyPC also sells the IDE cables in a 24" length. As you can see from the picture below, the rounded cable is a bit longer than your regular ATA/100 cable that comes bundled with any motherboard (2" longer to be exact). The regular cable is 2" wide, and the round cable is only 1/2" in diameter, being one fourth the width can really aid in airflow if you have a cluttered case!

Round Floppy Cable:

The floppy cable is made almost the same, instead of the protective covers near the connectors, it has a clear coating on the ends of the wires near the connectors to provide a place to grip the cable. The ends of the tube have heatshrink tubing on them to hold everything in place. This floppy cable is even thinner, being only 1/4" in diameter, and roughly 24" long. For comparison the regular floppy cable was about 19" long and 3/4" wide.

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