4 connector ide cables so master, slave, and ???

I am really ticked I can't find anything about this on the whole web.

Everyone talks about master, slave, and cable select, but what about 4 connector ide/udma cables?!?!?!?

one goes to the computer

one goes to the master

one to slave

and the other?!?!?@#!@#?!?!@#?!?#

they sell all sorts of them:

http://cableclub.com/view_product.asp?item_no=20453

heck I've even seen a 5! connector one for sale (although 40 pin) here:
http://www.cablesgroup.com/product_info.php?products_id=973



SO Whats up? Tell me why these type of cable exist if you can only have 2 devices on an ide channel?

I thought about it a while and now have an idea why they sell them this way though because I am experiencing the problem in my own case.

if you have a mobo and a drive farther away in your "large" case, your cable may not have any slack goin from your mobo to that drive. unless you have a connector where your second drive is, (along the path of the cable) you can't connect the second drive. so I'm guessing the connectors are there for when you don't have much slack, and the others are mean't to be left empty.

that seem like such a waste though. and especially since it violates the 18" standard.


another guy (Hal|9k) said "My best guess is that you could have multiple IDE devices on the cable, but you could only have two of them powered up at a time, maybe with toggles..."

I would wager it is for a RAID setup.
http://www.acnc.com/04_01_0p1.html