ATAPI standardises the interfacing to optical drives, tape streamers etc. ATAPI is not used with hard drives although that would be theoretically possible. ATAPI can be considered to be SCSI over the ATA/SATA interface. The packet command defined by this standard uses a slightly modified SCSI interface set. ATAPI can be used with Parallel ATA (PATAPI) and Serial ATA (SATAPI).

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