by Bhadase Maharaj

Created on: January 22, 2011

SATA or Serial Advanced Technology Attachment is a data transportation system to and from a computer’s hard drive. While it is common place to refer to the SATA compatible hard drive as a SATA drive, SATA is actually a bus interface, one that has evolved and continues to mature with time. SATA technology has become the evolutionary replacement for the older physical storage interface called Parallel ATA or PATA which was commonly known as IDE.

 SATA drives allow for easier integration, it performs faster and it is by far a more efficient design. Those bulky ribbon cables that were required by the older computers are now a thing of the past because the SATA devices utilizes cables that are less bulky and does not create the sort of clutter the older style cables are famous for. SATA specifications provide for improved speed and bandwidth and the jumpers that were once necessary for configuring a hard drive as a master or a slave are no longer required.

 The connectors which support SATA devices are easy to work with. Compared to the older style ribbon cables which had to integrate with a forty pin connector, the SATA device uses a seven pin cable for integration with the computer. The advantage gained here is speed and improved overall system airflow. Less cables leaves more room for air travel inside the tower therefore the cooling is improved. There is also the added benefit of hot plugging connectivity. This is a welcome feature because it means that in the case of servers there is no longer a need to power down the server in order to add a SATA compatible storage device.

 SATA supports data transfer rates anywhere from 1.5 Gigabits per second to 6.0 Gigabits per second and there is the possibility that these speeds would increase in the future. However, while practically all new computers supports SATA not all of the older ones do. So in the case where one needs to upgrade a hard drive, it is advisable not run out and purchase a SATA drive without being sure that your computer’s motherboard supports it. Also, if you are buying a refurbished computer and your choice of hard drive is SATA, please ask your dealer if the motherboard supports SATA drives before making a decision on which computer to purchase. There is no point in purchasing any computer that does not support SATA devices at this time. With improved performance, power management and physical configuration SATA drives appears to have a promising future on the market and are here to stay for a while.

 

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