Originally posted by: bacillus
no there isn't a minimum length.
If you stick directly to the IDE specification there most definitely is, specifically 10" in length.
Not a big deal to go slightly below that if you stick to PIO mode 1-4... but not many of us would be willing to do that.
One can generally get away with IDE cables as small as 8", but it's not recommended and doesnt comply with specifications.
If one were to stick directly to specifications then 18" is the longest and 10" is the shortest allowable.
You can generally go as long as 24", or as low as 8" however if your willing to accept marginally higher data error rates which the ATA interface's built in CRC error checking should usually be able to hande adequately.
You might be able to pull of as small as 6" if you really feel like pushing it assuming your using a modern ATA60/100/133 IDE HDD, your bound to have awfully high data error rates which CRC should find and retransmit but you'll take a performance hit. I wouldnt try that small with any sort of Optical Drive however.