Table of Contents
Advertisement
Appendix C – Introduction to Serial ATA
Performance
Serial ATA technology delivers up to 1.5Gb/sec of performance to each drive within a disk drive
array – more than enough to help you get the most out of the current generation of hard drives.
Serial ATA is also more reliable than Parallel ATA: instructions as well as data are checked for
errors, resulting in higher reliability, and less frequent corruption of data.
Electrical interference is reduced by the use of differential signaling (which also reduces the
need for grounding).
Cost effectiveness
The scalability of Serial ATA solutions means that RAIDs can be built, expanded and
reconfigured according to requirements with minimal cost to the administrator.
Serial ATA-compatible HDDs are priced similarly to Parallel ATA equivalents, their improved
performance notwithstanding.
Serial ATA is also fully backwards compatible. Users can swap easily between formats and use
Parallel ATA drive in a Serial ATA drive array (this may require use of a cabling adapter). Such
flexibility ensures that Serial ATA can provide low cost solutions.
89
Advertisement
Table of Contents
