SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment or Serial ATA)
Tuesday, November 23, 2010|
adminSATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment or Serial ATA) is an interface used to connect ATA hard drives to a computer's motherboard. SATA transfer rates start at 150MBps, which is significantly faster than even the fastest 100MBps ATA/100 drives. SATA is based on serial signaling technology, unlike current IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) hard drives that use parallel signaling.
Serial ATA was designed to replace the older ATA (AT Attachment) standard (also known as EIDE). It is able to use the same low level commands, but serial ATA host-adapters and devices communicate via a high-speed serial cable over two pairs of conductors. In contrast, the parallel ATA (the redesignation for the legacy ATA specifications) used 16 data conductors each operating at a much lower speed.
The SATA host adapter is integrated into almost all modern consumer laptop computers and desktop motherboards. SATA has replaced parallel ATA in most shipping consumer PCs. PATA remains in industrial and embedded applications dependent on CompactFlash storage although the new CFast storage standard will be based on SATA
SATA advantages over the Parallel ATA:
- SATA cables are more flexible, thinner, and less massive than the ribbon cables required for conventional PATA hard drives.
- SATA cables can be considerably longer than PATA ribbon cables, allowing the designer more latitude in the physical layout of a system.
- The signal voltage is much lower as well (250 mV for SATA as compared with 5 V for PATA).
- SATA drives each have their own independent bus, so there is no competition for bandwidth like there is with Parallel ATA SATA cables can be as long as one meter, while PATA cables max out at 40cm.
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