What exactly is SATA?

[OCNewbie]

I haven't upgraded in about 2 years, fastest processor I own or have owned is a 1.33GHz Athlon/TBird. I'm out of the loop when it comes to this SATA stuff.

My current hard drive is a 2+ year old 40 GB, 10 gb/platter Maxtor HDD. Last Hard Drive technology upgrade I remember is ATA-133 I think. How does SATA differ from how my current hard drive connects to my computer? Do I currently have a PATA drive and connection?

If I can just get a brief rundown of what SATA is, what's new about it, and what changes in general have happened to IDE or ATA (is that one in the same?) hard drives in the last couple years.

Many thanks =)

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: OCNewbie
I haven't upgraded in about 2 years, fastest processor I own or have owned is a 1.33GHz Athlon/TBird. I'm out of the loop when it comes to this SATA stuff.

My current hard drive is a 2+ year old 40 GB, 10 gb/platter Maxtor HDD. Last Hard Drive technology upgrade I remember is ATA-133 I think. How does SATA differ from how my current hard drive connects to my computer? Do I currently have a PATA drive and connection?

If I can just get a brief rundown of what SATA is, what's new about it, and what changes in general have happened to IDE or ATA (is that one in the same?) hard drives in the last couple years.

Many thanks =)

The SATA interface is an 8 wire serial interface with a motherboard that can support up to 150MB/sec transfer rates. Like ATA-66/100/133 this is severely underutlilized and the additional bandwidth doesnt create any real performance increases. In serial ATAs case most of the HDs use a chip to convert the signal, they are natively ATA100 and just convert to the SATA150 signal with no speed loss.

Now for SATA vs PATA, other than the much smaller cable, performance wise all the drives perform very very similar across the board. With one exception, the Western Digital Raptor. This beauty has a 10000rpm spindle speed, 8MB of onboard cache, 36GB platters, and transfer rates over 55MB/sec. These drives are very popular among performance enthusiasts as they are the fastest drives money can buy without going SCSI. The original WD Raptor was a bit on the louder side for a consumer drive but there is now a 72GB "second gen raptor" they changed to quieter motors on the drive and they are believed by enthusiasts to also be more reliable. The second gen raptor also has very nice seek times (<5ms). There is also a 36GB 2nd gen raptor coming out sometime soon that will have all the performance advantages of a raptor, without the 72GB pricetag. The most popular use for the raptor is to use it for the boot drive and use a slower large HDD for storing files.

 

[OCNewbie]

Thanks for the reply. I read the anandtech review on the Raptor HDD, and read the little bit they had there about SATA, and I think I understand the basics. Apparently, the only real advantage someone like me would get out of it is the smaller cables, so more room inside the case, better airflow perhaps. And just to confirm, it's almost a certainty that my drive now are connected via PATA interface is that right? Like are common CD-ROM drives, that use the same connector as my Hard drive, that would be a PATA connection as well right? I suppose there's no point in having a SATA CD/DVD-ROM drive, other than for the smaller cables then as well.

 

[MDE]

Your current drives are PATA. Another benefit of SATA is one cable per device, so no more jumpers.

 

[Reliant]

What type of power connection does SATA take?

 

[TheBoyBlunder]

Originally posted by: Reliant
What type of power connection does SATA take?

I think it's a new "for serial-ata" power connector. Yes, they sell adapters between either ordinary 4 pin connectors and the new ones, or floppy connectors and the new ones.

 

[tallman45]

It depends, PArtors for example have both the standard molex and SATA power connectors. Most power supplies sold today from Antec and others have 2 SATA connectors, as do most new motherboards

 

[tallman45]

Oops, make that Raptors instead of PArtors (pre-coffee typo)

 

[RockV]

Here's a URL with a very good overview and explaination of SATA:

SATA Explained