Serial ATA (also SATA or S-ATA) is a computer bus mainly designed for transfer of data to and from a hard disk. SATA is the successor to the legacy ATA interface known as IDE. The bandwidth of the first generation Serial ATA interface is 150 MB/Sec only slightly higher than that of the IDE UDMA – 133.
SATA 2 offers 300MB / Sec transfer rate and 600MB/Sec upgrade is planned around 2007.
SATA connectors are relatively small. This has the benefit of improving the heat dissipation inside the PC.
What’s in it for you? Being the latest technology and being faster than old IDE interface, it is better to ask for SATA while you consider buying a PC. Latest motherboards have them integrated however it is advised to ensure this.
Serial ATA is the next -generation internal storage interconnect, designed to replace parallel ATA technology. Serial ATA is the proactive evolution of the ATA interface from a parallel bus to a serial bus architecture. This architecture overcomes the electrical constraints that are increasing the difficulty of continued speed enhancements for the classic parallel ATA bus. Serial ATA will be introduced at 150Mbytes/sec, with a roadmap already planned to 600Mbytes/sec, supporting up to 10 years of storage evolution based on historical trends. Though Serial ATA will not be able to directly interface with legacy Ultra ATA hardware, it is fully compliant with the ATA protocol and thus is software compatible.
Webs Best Links:
- Serial ATA working group specifications (www.serialata.org/specifications.asp)
- Tom’s Hardware controller tests (www.tomshardware.com/storage/20030204/)
- Using serial ATA with Linux (www.linuxmafia.com/faq/Hardware/sata.html)
Hard Disk Manufacturing Companies:
Next : Hidef Sound.