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F
E
EATURES
XPLORED
Serial ATA
Parallel ATA technology has served computers well for
about two decades. However, increasingly faster hard
disk transfer rates have forced the ATA interface specifi-
cation to be continuously updated to avoid becoming
the limiting factor in disk I/O performance.
At the same time, popular applications––such as digital
video creation and editing, digital audio storage and
playback, file sharing over high-speed networks, and
other data intensive applications––are placing greater
and greater demands on hard drive performance.
Ultra ATA, an enhancement of the original parallel ATA
interface, was created as a result, and it became the
standard for years. However, continued increases in
demands for faster performance has necessitated a
need for a storage interconnect that goes beyond even
Ultra ATA.
The new approach is SATA, a serial implementation
of the parallel Ultra ATA interface. SATA architecture
overcomes the electrical constraints that limited per-
formance enhancements of the classic parallel ATA bus.
SATA not only offers higher data rates, but also smaller
cables and connectors, and lower voltage signals. In
addition, SATA can be scaled to accommodate system
needs for increasing storage capacity and performance
over the coming years.
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Troubleshooting
