Strictly speaking there is a slight difference in cable pair placement between single ended and differential cables. However, careful selection of cable pairs avoids the necessity for manufacturers to build single ended as well as differential cables. Some cable manufacturers save manufacturing cost by deleting up to 25 of the ground wires in the narrow single ended SCSI cable. That drastically changes cable impedance and increases cross talk thereby causing problems, particularly with FAST SCSI and/or long cables. Although they may work over short distances (not more than four feet) they often cause errors resulting in SCSI retries and reduced data throughput. They will not work at all on differential SCSI. To save yourself headaches, purchase "differential" cables and do not use so called "single-ended" SCSI cables.

This definition is in context to SCSI. See more contextual defintions for Single-ended Cable.