Serial ATA

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"SATA" redirects here. For other uses, see SATA (disambiguation).
SATA
Serial Advanced Technology Attachment

First-generation (1.5 Gbit/s) SATA ports on a motherboard
Year created: 2003
Number of devices: 1
Capacity 1.5 Gbit/s, 3.0 Gbit/s, 6.0 Gbit/s
Style: Serial
Hotplugging? Yes, with support of other system components
External? Yes, with eSATA

The Serial ATA (SATA, IPA: /ˈseɪtə/, /ˈsætə/ or /ˈsɑːtə/) computer bus is a storage-interface for connecting host bus adapters (most commonly integrated into laptop computers and desktop motherboards) to mass storage devices (such as hard disk drives and optical drives).

Conceptually, SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) is a 'wire replacement' for the older AT Attachment standard (ATA). Serial ATA host-adapters and devices communicate via a high-speed serial cable.

SATA offers several compelling advantages over the older parallel ATA interface: reduced cable-bulk and cost (8 pins vs 40 pins), faster and more efficient data transfer, and the ability to remove or add devices while operating (hot swapping).

As of 2009, SATA has all but replaced the legacy ATA (retroactively renamed Parallel ATA or PATA) in all shipping consumer PCs. PATA remains dominant in industrial and embedded applications dependent on CompactFlash storage though the new CFast storage standard will be based on SATA.[1][2]

Contents

[edit] SATA specification bodies

There are at least four bodies with possible responsibility for providing SATA specifications: the trade organisation, SATA-IO; the INCITS T10 subcommittee (SCSI); a subgroup of T10 responsible for SAS; and the INCITS T13 subcommittee (ATA). This has caused confusion as the ATA/ATAPI-7 specification from T13 incorporated an early, incomplete SATA rev. 1 specification from SATA-IO.[3] The remainder of this article will try to use the terminology and specifications of SATA-IO.

[edit] Advanced Host Controller Interface

Main article: Advanced Host Controller Interface

As their de facto standard interface, SATA controllers use the Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI), which allows advanced features of SATA such as hot plug and native command queuing (NCQ). If AHCI is not enabled by the motherboard and chipset, SATA controllers typically operate in "IDE emulation" mode which does not allow features of devices to be accessed if the ATA/IDE standard does not support them. Windows device drivers that are labeled as SATA are usually running in IDE emulation mode unless they explicitly state that they are AHCI. While the drivers included with Windows XP do not support AHCI, AHCI has been implemented by proprietary device drivers.[4] Windows Vista[5] and Linux with kernel version 2.6.19 onward[6] have native support for AHCI.

[edit] Features

The current SATA rev. 2.x specifications detail data transfer rates as high as 3.0 Gbit/s per device. SATA uses only 4 signal lines; cables are more compact and cheaper than PATA. SATA supports hot-swapping and NCQ. There is a special connector (eSATA) specified for external devices, and an optionally implemented provision for clips to hold internal connectors firmly in place. SATA drives may be plugged into SAS controllers and communicate on the same physical cable as native SAS disks, but SATA controllers cannot handle SAS disks.

[edit] Throughput

[edit] SATA 1.5 Gbit/s

First-generation SATA interfaces, also known as SATA 1.5 Gbit/s or unofficially as SATA 1, communicate at a rate of 1.5 Gbit/s. Taking 8b/10b encoding overhead into account, they have an actual uncoded transfer rate of 1.2 Gbit/s, or 1,200 Mbit/s. The theoretical burst throughput of SATA 1.5 Gbit/s is similar to that of PATA/133, but newer SATA devices offer enhancements such as NCQ which improve performance in a multitasking environment..

Today's mechanical hard disk drives can transfer data at up to 127 MB/s,[7] which is within the capabilities of the older PATA/133 specification. However, high-performance flash drives can transfer data at up to 201 MB/s.[8] SATA 1.5 Gbit/s does not provide sufficient throughput for these drives.

During the initial period after SATA 1.5 Gbit/s finalization, adapter and drive manufacturers used a "bridge chip" to convert existing PATA designs for use with the SATA interface.[citation needed] Bridged drives have a SATA connector, may include either or both kinds of power connectors, and generally perform identically to their PATA equivalents. Most lack support for some SATA-specific features such as NCQ. Bridged products gradually gave way to native SATA products.[citation needed]

[edit] SATA 3 Gbit/s

Soon after the introduction of SATA 1.5 Gbit/s, a number of shortcomings emerged. At the application level SATA could handle only one pending transaction at a time—like PATA. The SCSI interface has long been able to accept multiple outstanding requests and service them in the order which minimizes response time. This feature, native command queuing (NCQ), was adopted as an optional supported feature for SATA 1.5 Gbit/s and SATA 3 Gbit/s devices.

First-generation SATA devices operated at best a little faster than parallel ATA/133 devices. Subsequently, a 3 Gbit/s signaling rate was added to the physical layer (PHY layer), effectively doubling maximum data throughput from 150 MB/s to 300 MB/s.

For mechanical hard drives, SATA 3 Gbit/s transfer rate is expected to satisfy drive throughput requirements for some time, as the fastest mechanical drives barely saturate a SATA 1.5 Gbit/s link. A SATA data cable rated for 1.5 Gbit/s will handle current mechanical drives without any loss of sustained and burst data transfer performance. However, high-performance flash drives are approaching SATA 3 Gbit/s transfer rate.

Given the importance of backward compatibility between SATA 1.5 Gbit/s controllers and SATA 3 Gbit/s devices, SATA 3 Gbit/s autonegotiation sequence is designed to fall back to SATA 1.5 Gbit/s speed when in communication with such devices. In practice, some older SATA controllers do not properly implement SATA speed negotiation. Affected systems require the user to set the SATA 3 Gbit/s peripherals to 1.5 Gbit/s mode, generally through the use of a jumper,[9] however some drives lack this jumper. Chipsets known to have this fault include the VIA VT8237 and VT8237R southbridges, and the VIA VT6420 and VT6421L standalone SATA controllers.[10] SiS's 760 and 964 chipsets also initially exhibited this problem, though it can be rectified with an updated SATA controller ROM.[citation needed]

This table shows the real speed of SATA 1.5 Gbit/s and SATA 3 Gbit/s; note the bottom row shows megabytes per second (MB/s, not Mbit/s):

SATA 1.5 Gbit/s SATA 3 Gbit/s
Frequency 1.5 GHz 3 GHz
Bits/clock 1 1
8b/10b encoding 80% 80%
bits/Byte 8 8
Real speed 150 MB/s 300 MB/s

[edit] SATA II misnomer

Popular usage may refer to the SATA 3 Gbit/s specification as "Serial ATA II" ("SATA II" or "SATA2"), contrary to the wishes of the Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO) which defines the standard. SATA II was originally the name of a committee defining updated SATA standards, of which the 3 Gbit/s standard was just one. However since it was among the most prominent features defined by the former SATA II committee, and, more critically, the term "II" is commonly used for successors, the name SATA II became synonymous with the 3 Gbit/s standard, so the group has since changed names to the Serial ATA International Organization, or SATA-IO, to avoid further confusion.

[edit] SATA 6 Gbit/s

Serial ATA International Organization presented the draft specification of SATA 6 Gbit/s physical layer in July 2008,[11] and ratified its physical layer specification on August 18, 2008. The full 3.0 standard is expected to be available in early 2009.[12] While even the fastest conventional hard disk drives can barely saturate the original SATA 1.5 Gbit/s bandwidth, Intel's Solid State Disk drives are close to saturating the SATA 3 Gbit/s limit at 250 MB/s net read speed, and other new drives including Super Talent, Memoright and Samsung are close to that as well. Ten channels of fast flash can actually reach well over 500 MB/s with new ONFI drives, so a move from SATA 3 Gbit/s to SATA 6 Gbit/s would benefit the flash read speeds. As for the standard hard disks, the reads from their built-in DRAM cache will end up faster across the new interface.[13]

The new specification will include a handful of extensions to the command set, especially in the area of data and command queuing. The enhancements are generally aimed at improving quality of service for video streaming and high priority interrupts. In addition, the standard will continue to support distances up to a meter. The new speeds may require higher power consumption for supporting chips, factors that new process technologies and power management techniques are expected to mitigate. The new specification can use existing SATA cables and connectors, although some OEMs are expected to upgrade host connectors for the higher speeds.[14] Also, the new standard is backwards compatible with SATA 3 Gbit/s.[15]

In order to avoid parallels to the common "SATA II" misnomer, the SATA-IO has compiled a set of marketing guidelines for the new specification. The specification should be called "Serial ATA International Organization: Serial ATA Revision 3.0", and the technology itself is to be referred to as "SATA 6 Gbit/s". A product using this standard should be called the "SATA 6 Gbit/s [product name]". The terms "SATA III" or "SATA 3.0", which are considered to cause confusion among consumers, should not be used.[15]

[edit] Cables and connectors

Connectors and cables present the most visible differences between SATA and Parallel ATA drives. Unlike PATA, the same connectors are used on 3.5 in (89 mm) SATA hard disks for desktop and server computers and 2.5 in (64 mm) disks for portable or small computers; this allows 2.5 in drives to be used in desktop computers without the need for wiring adapters (a mounting adaptor is still likely to be needed to securely mount the drive).

SATA connectors are not as robust as PATA connectors. For example, the motherboard connector on SATA includes a plastic tab (see the picture above) which can be broken if the connector is bent. This might happen if the cable is pulled to one side. Because such a broken connector is on the motherboard rather than the cable, it is not easy to replace.

[edit] Data

Pin # Function
1 Ground
2 A+ (Transmit)
3 A− (Transmit)
4 Ground
5 B− (Receive)
6 B+ (Receive)
7 Ground
8 coding notch
A 7-pin Serial ATA data cable.
A 7-pin Serial ATA right-angle data cable.

The SATA standard defines a data cable with seven conductors (3 grounds and 4 active data lines in two pairs) and 8 mm wide wafer connectors on each end. SATA cables can have lengths up to 1 metre (3.3 ft), and connect one motherboard socket to one hard drive. PATA ribbon cables, in comparison, connect one motherboard socket to up to two hard drives, carry either 40 or 80 wires, and are limited to 45 centimetres (18 in) in length by the PATA specification (however, cables up to 90 centimetres (35 in) are readily available). Thus, SATA connectors and cables are easier to fit in closed spaces and reduce obstructions to air cooling. They are more susceptible to accidental unplugging and breakage than PATA, but cables can be purchased that have a 'locking' feature, whereby a small (usually metal) spring holds the plug in the socket.

One of the problems associated with the transmission of data at high speed over electrical connections is loosely described as 'noise'. Despite attempts to avoid it, some electrical coupling will exist both between data circuits and between them and other circuits. As a result, the data circuits can both affect other circuits, whether they are within the same piece of equipment or not, and can be affected by them. Designers use a number of techniques to reduce the undesirable effects of such unintentional coupling. One such technique used in SATA links is differential signalling. This is an enhancement over PATA, which uses single-ended signaling. Twisted pair cabling also gives superior performance in this regard.

[edit] Power supply

[edit] Standard connector
Pin # Mating Function
— coding notch
1 3rd 3.3 V
2 3rd
3 2nd
4 1st Ground
5 2nd
6 2nd
7 2nd 5 V
8 3rd
9 3rd
10 2nd Ground
11 3rd Staggered spinup/activity
(in supporting drives)
12 1st Ground
13 2nd 12 V
14 3rd
15 3rd
A 15-pin Serial ATA power connector.
A 15-pin Serial ATA power receptacle. This connector does not
provide the extended pins 4 and 12 needed for hot-plugging.
A Western Digital 3.5 inch 250 GB SATA HDD, with both SATA (left) and Molex (right) power inputs.

The SATA standard also specifies a new power connector. Like the data cable, it is wafer-based, but its wider 15-pin shape prevents accidental mis-identification and forced insertion of the wrong connector type. Native SATA devices favor the SATA power-connector over the old four-pin Molex connector (found on most PATA equipment), although some SATA drives retain older 4-pin Molex in addition to the SATA power connector.

SATA features more pins than the traditional connector for several reasons:

  • A third voltage is supplied, 3.3 V, in addition to the traditional 5 V and 12 V.
  • Each voltage transmits through three pins ganged together, because the small pins by themselves cannot supply sufficient current for some devices. (Each pin should be able to provide 1.5 A.)
  • Five pins ganged together provide ground.
  • For each of the three voltages, one of the three pins serves for hotplugging. The ground pins and power pins 3, 7, and 13 are longer on the plug (located on the SATA device) so they will connect first. A special hot-plug receptacle (on the cable or a backplane) can connect ground pins 4 and 12 first.
  • Pin 11 can function for staggered spinup, activity indication, or nothing. Staggered spinup is used to prevent many drives from spinning up simultaneously, as this may draw too much power. Activity is an indication of whether the drive is busy, and is intended to give feedback to the user through a LED.

Adaptors exist which can convert a 4-pin Molex connector to a SATA power connector. However, because the 4-pin Molex connectors do not provide 3.3 V power, these adapters provide only 5 V and 12 V power and leave the 3.3 V lines unconnected. This precludes the use of such adapters with drives that require 3.3 V power. Understanding this, drive manufacturers have largely left the 3.3 V power lines unused.


[edit] Slimline connector
Pin # Function
1 Device Present
2–3 5 V
4 Manufacturing Diagnostic
5–6 Ground
A 6-pin Slimline Serial ATA power connector.
A 6-pin Slimline Serial ATA power connector.

SATA 2.6 first defined the slimline connector, intended for smaller form-factors; e.g., notebook optical drives.


[edit] Micro connector
Pin # Function
1–2 3.3 V
3–4 Ground
5–6 5 V
7 Reserved
8–9 Vendor Specific

The micro connector originated with SATA 2.6. It is intended for 1.8-inch (46 mm) hard drives. There is also a micro data connector, which it is similar to the standard data connector but is slightly thinner.


[edit] Topology

SATA topology: host – expansor - device

SATA uses a point-to-point architecture. The connection between the controller and the storage device is direct.

Modern PC systems usually have a SATA controller on the motherboard, or installed in a PCI or PCI Express slot. Some SATA controllers have multiple SATA ports and can be connected to multiple storage devices. There are also port expanders or multipliers which allow multiple storage devices to be connected to a single SATA controller port.

[edit] Encoding

These high-speed transmission protocols use a logic encoding known as 8b/10b encoding. The signal uses non-return to zero (NRZ) encoding with LVDS.

In the 8b/10b encoding the data sequence includes the synchronizing signal. This technique is known as clock data recovery, because it does not use a separate synchronizing signal. Instead, it uses the serial signal's 0 to 1 transitions to recover the clock signal.

[edit] External SATA

 It has been suggested that this section be split into a new article entitled eSATA. (Discuss)
The official eSATA logo

eSATA, standardized in 2004, provides a variant of SATA meant for external connectivity. It has revised electrical requirements in addition to incompatible cables and connectors:

  • Minimum transmit potential increased: Range is 500–600 mV instead of 400–600 mV.
  • Minimum receive potential decreased: Range is 240–600 mV instead of 325–600 mV.
  • Identical protocol and logical signaling (link/transport-layer and above), allowing native SATA devices to be deployed in external enclosures with minimal modification
  • Maximum cable length of 2 metres (6.6 ft) (USB and FireWire allow longer distances.)
  • The external cable connector equates to a shielded version of the connector specified in SATA 1.0a with these basic differences:
    • The external connector has no "L" shaped key, and the guide features are vertically offset and reduced in size. This prevents the use of unshielded internal cables in external applications and vice-versa.
    • To prevent ESD damage, the design increased insertion depth from 5 mm to 6.6 mm and the contacts are mounted farther back in both the receptacle and plug.
    • To provide EMI protection and meet FCC and CE emission requirements, the cable has an extra layer of shielding, and the connectors have metal contact-points.
    • The connector shield has springs as retention features built in on both the top and bottom surfaces.
    • The external connector and cable have a design-life of over five thousand insertions and removals, while the internal connector is only specified to withstand fifty.
SATA (left) and eSATA (right) connectors

Aimed at the consumer market, eSATA enters an external storage market already served by the USB and FireWire interfaces. Most external hard-disk-drive cases with FireWire or USB interfaces use either PATA or SATA drives and "bridges" to translate between the drives' interfaces and the enclosures' external ports, and this bridging incurs some inefficiency. Some single disks can transfer almost 120 MB/s during real use,[7] more than twice the maximum transfer rate of USB 2.0 or FireWire 400 (IEEE 1394a) and well in excess of the maximum transfer rate of FireWire 800, though the S3200 FireWire 1394b spec reaches ~400 MB/s (3.2 Gbit/s). Finally, some low-level drive features, such as S.M.A.R.T., may not operate through USB or FireWire bridging.[16] eSATA does not suffer from these issues.

HDMI, Ethernet, and eSATA ports on a Sky+ HD Digibox

Commentators[who?] expect that eSATA will co-exist with USB 2.0 and FireWire external storage for several reasons. As of early 2008 the vast majority of mass-market computers have USB ports and many computers and consumer electronic appliances have FireWire ports, but few devices have external SATA connectors. For small form-factor devices (such as external 2.5 in (64 mm) disks), a PC-hosted USB or FireWire link supplies sufficient power to operate the device. Where a PC-hosted port is concerned, eSATA connectors cannot supply power, and would therefore be more cumbersome to use.

Owners of desktop computers that lack a built-in eSATA interface can upgrade them with the installation of an eSATA host bus adapter (HBA), while notebooks can be upgraded with Cardbus[17] or ExpressCard[18] versions of an eSATA HBA. With passive adapters the maximum cable length is reduced to 1 metre (3.3 ft) due to the absence of compliant eSATA signal-levels. Full SATA speed for external disks (115 MB/s) have been measured with external RAID enclosures.[citation needed]

eSATA may[original research?] attract the enterprise and server market, which has already standardized on the Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) interface, because of its hotplug capability and low price.

Prior to the final eSATA specification, a number of products existed designed for external connections of SATA drives. Some of these use the internal SATA connector or even connectors designed for other interface specifications, such as FireWire. These products are not eSATA compliant. The final eSATA specification features a specific connector designed for rough handling, similar to the regular SATA connector, but with reinforcements in both the male and female sides, inspired by the USB connector. eSATA resists inadvertent unplugging, and can withstand yanking or wiggling which would break a male SATA connector (the hard-drive or host adapter, usually fitted inside the computer). With an eSATA connector, considerably more force is needed to damage the connector, and if it does break it is likely to be the female side, on the cable itself, which is relatively easy to replace.[citation needed]

[edit] Backward and forward compatibility

[edit] SATA and PATA

At the device level, SATA and PATA devices remain completely incompatible—they cannot be interconnected. At the application level, SATA devices can be specified to look and act like PATA devices.[19] Many motherboards offer a "legacy mode" option which makes SATA drives appear to the OS like PATA drives on a standard controller. This eases OS installation by not requiring a specific driver to be loaded during setup but sacrifices support for some features of SATA and generally disables some of the boards' PATA or SATA ports since the standard PATA controller interface only supports 4 drives. (Often which ports are disabled is configurable.)

The common heritage of the ATA command set has enabled the proliferation of low-cost PATA to SATA bridge-chips. Bridge-chips were widely used on PATA drives (before the completion of native SATA drives) as well as standalone "dongles." When attached to a PATA drive, a device-side dongle allows the PATA drive to function as a SATA drive. Host-side dongles allow a motherboard PATA port to function as a SATA host port.

The market has produced powered enclosures for both PATA and SATA drives which interface to the PC through USB, Firewire or eSATA, with the restrictions noted above. PCI cards with a SATA connector exist that allow SATA drives to connect to legacy systems without SATA connectors.

[edit] SATA 1.5 Gbit/s and SATA 3 Gbit/s

The designers of SATA aimed for backward and forward compatibility with future revisions of the SATA standard.[20]

According to the hard drive manufacturer Maxtor, motherboard host controllers using the VIA and SIS chipsets VT8237, VT8237R, VT6420, VT6421L, SIS760, SIS964 found on the ECS 755-A2 manufactured in 2003, do not support SATA 3 Gbit/s drives. To address interoperability problems, the largest hard drive manufacturer, Seagate/Maxtor, has added a user-accessible jumper-switch known as the Force 150, to switch between 150 MB/s and 300 MB/s operation.[9] Users with a SATA 1.5 Gbit/s motherboard with one of the listed chipsets should either buy an ordinary SATA 1.5 Gbit/s hard disk, buy a SATA 3 Gbit/s hard disk with the user-accessible jumper, or buy a PCI or PCI-E card to add full SATA 3 Gbit/s capability and compatibility. Western Digital uses a jumper setting called "OPT1 Enabled" to force 150 MB/s data transfer speed. OPT1 is used by putting the jumper on pins 5 & 6.[21]

[edit] Comparisons with other interfaces

[edit] SATA and SCSI

SCSI currently offers transfer rates higher than SATA, but it uses a more complex bus, usually resulting in higher manufacturing costs. SCSI buses also allow connection of several drives (using multiple channels, 7 or 15 on each channel), whereas SATA allows one drive per channel, unless using a port multiplier.

SATA 3 Gbit/s offers a maximum bandwidth of 300 MB/s per device compared to SCSI with a maximum of 320 MB/s. Also, SCSI drives provide greater sustained throughput than SATA drives because of disconnect-reconnect and aggregating performance. SATA devices generally link compatibly to SAS enclosures and adapters, while SCSI devices cannot be directly connected to a SATA bus.

SCSI, SAS and fibre-channel (FC) drives are typically more expensive so they are traditionally used in servers and disk arrays where the added cost is justifiable. Inexpensive ATA and SATA drives evolved in the home-computer market, hence there is a view that they are less reliable. As those two worlds overlapped, the subject of reliability became somewhat controversial. Note that generally a disk drive has a low failure rate because of the quality of its heads, platters and supporting manufacturing processes, not because of having a certain interface.

[edit] eSATA in comparison to other external buses

Name Raw bandwidth (Mbit/s) Transfer speed (MB/s) Max. cable length (m) Power provided Devices per Channel
SAS 150 1500 150 8 No 1 (16k with expanders)
SAS 300 3000 300 8 No 1 (16k with expanders)
eSATA 3000 300 2 with eSATA HBA (1 with passive adapter) No[22] 1 (15 with port multiplier)
SATA 300 3000 300 1 No 1 (15 with port multiplier)
SATA 150 1500 150 1 No 1 per line
PATA 133 1064 133 0.46 (18 in) No 2
FireWire 3200 3144 393 100; alternate cables available for 100 m+ 15 W, 12–25 V 63 (with hub)
FireWire 800 786 98.25 100[23] 15 W, 12–25 V 63 (with hub)
FireWire 400 393 49.13 4.5[23][24] 15 W, 12–25 V 63 (with hub)
USB 2.0 480 60 5[25] 2.5 W, 5 V 127 (with hub)
USB 3.0* 5000 625 3[26] 4.5 W, 5 V 127 (with hub)[26]
Ultra-320 SCSI 2560 320 12 No 15 (plus the HBA)
Fibre Channel
over copper cable		 4000 400 12 No 126
(16777216 with switches)
Fibre Channel
over optic fiber		 10520 2000 2–50000 No 126
(16777216 with switches)
InfiniBand
12X Quad-rate		 120000 12000 5 (copper)[27][28]

<10000 (fiber)

 No 1 with point to point
Many with switched fabric

* USB 3.0 not to be released until mid 2009.

Unlike PATA, both SATA and eSATA support hot-swapping by design. However, this feature requires proper support at the host, device (drive), and operating-system level. In general, all SATA/devices (drives) support hot-swapping (due to the requirements on the device-side), but requisite support is less common on SATA host adapters.[citation needed]

SCSI-3 devices with SCA-2 connectors are designed for hot-swapping. Many server and RAID systems provide hardware support for transparent hot-swapping. The designers of the SCSI standard prior to SCA-2 connectors did not target hot-swapping, but, in practice, most RAID implementations support hot-swapping of hard disks.

Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) is designed for hot-swapping.

[edit] See also

Sister project Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Serial ATA

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ^ Donald Melanson (2008-02-25). "CFast CompactFlash cards now said to be coming in "18 to 24 months"". Engadget. http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/25/cfast-compactflash-cards-now-said-to-be-coming-in-18-to-24-mont/. Retrieved on 2009-03-19. 
  2. ^ "Pretec release CFast card with SATA interface". DPReview. 2009-01-08. http://www.dpreview.com/news/0901/09010902preteccfaststoragecards.asp. Retrieved on 2009-03-19. 
  3. ^ "ATA-ATAPI.COM Serial ATA (SATA)". http://www.ata-atapi.com/sata.html. Retrieved on 29-1-2009. 
  4. ^ Intel Matrix Storage Technology. Intel Support.
  5. ^ Microsoft Help and Support
  6. ^ Serial ATA (SATA) Linux hardware/driver status report
  7. ^ a b Patrick Schmid and Achim Roos (2008-11-24). "Tom’s Winter 2008 Hard Drive Guide Throughput and Interface Performance". tomshardware.com. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hdd-terabyte-1tb,2077-11.html. Retrieved on 2009-03-15. 
  8. ^ Patrick Schmid and Achim Roos (2009-01-28). "Six New SSDs: Can Intel Be Dethroned? Throughput, Interface Performance". tomshardware.com. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-hdd-flash,2127-9.html. Retrieved on 2009-03-15. 
  9. ^ a b Barracuda 7200.10 SATA Seagate.
  10. ^ Service and Support Western Digital.
  11. ^ SATA-IO (2008-08-18) (PDF). New SATA Spec Will Double Data Transfer Rates to 6 Gbit/s. Press release. http://www.sata-io.org/documents/SATA_6gbphy_pressrls_finalrv2.pdf. 
  12. ^ [1]
  13. ^ The Inquirer - IDF Fall 2008 coverage
  14. ^ EETimes news report
  15. ^ a b SATA-IO website
  16. ^ "Questions about the indicators of health/performance (in percent)". HDDlife. http://www.hddlife.com/eng/faq.html. Retrieved on 2007-08-29. 
  17. ^ CardBus SATA adapter
  18. ^ ExpressCard SATA adapter
  19. ^ "A comparison with Ultra ATA Technology" (PDF). SATA-IO. http://www.sata-io.org/documents/serialata%20-%20a%20comparison%20with%20ultra%20ata%20technology.pdf. Retrieved on 2007-07-12. 
  20. ^ Serial ATA - Next Generation Storage Interface Hitachi Global Storage Technologies.
  21. ^ http://www.wdc.com/en/library/eide/2579-001037.pdf
  22. ^ SATA-IO states power will be added by 2009
  23. ^ a b "FireWire Developer Note: FireWire Concepts". Apple Developer Connection. http://developer.apple.com/documentation/HardwareDrivers/Conceptual/HWTech_FireWire/Articles/FireW_concepts.html. 
  24. ^ 16 cables can be daisy chained up to 72 m
  25. ^ USB hubs can be daisy chained up to 25 m
  26. ^ a b http://electronicdesign.com/Articles/ArticleID/19680/19680.html
  27. ^ Minich, Makia (2007-06-25). "Infiniband Based Cable Comparison" (PDF). http://download.intel.com/design/network/products/optical/cables/ornl.pdf. Retrieved on 2008-02-11. 
  28. ^ Feldman, Michael (2007-07-17). "Optical Cables Light Up InfiniBand". HPCwire (Tabor Publications & Events): pp. 1. http://www.hpcwire.com/hpc/1729056.html. Retrieved on 2008-02-11. 

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA"
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