Benefits of using SATA

How will the industry benefit from adopting SATA?
Adoption of the Serial ATA specification provides low-cost storage for the industry, improved speed and bandwidth, and serves as an evolutionary replacement for the Parallel ATA interface. Implementation of Serial ATA allows for easy integration due to improved cabling, greater flexibility in regard to system configuration and hot plugability. With these enhancements, system builders can create new solutions with fewer limitations and will experience greater interoperability with other interfaces.

What are the end user benefits of SATA?
End users will benefit by being able to easily upgrade their storage devices. Configuration of SATA devices will be much simpler, with many of today's requirements on jumper and settings no longer needed. Advancements in the SATA specifications also allow improvements and scalability in performance for the storage interface.

What are the System Integrator benefits of using SATA?
SATA provides:
• Easier system build-up
• Simplified cabling
• Elimination of jumpers
• Improved overall system airflow
• Enhanced reliability

How does the end-user benefit from using SATA technology in servers and NAS?
User benefits for servers and NAS include:
• Hotplug/backplane
• Enclosure management
• Interoperability with SAS
• Backward compatibility with various speeds
• Higher performance
• Ease of integration – no more jumpers
• Improved air flow

How does the system vendor benefit from using SATA technology in servers and NAS?
Benefits for the OEM include:
• Easier configuration and design with cables that are thinner, have smaller connectors, and are simpler to route and install
• Ability to use HDD technology across multiple segments such as desktops, entry and midrange servers, and networked storage
• Easier training for Sales and Tech Support staff
• Improved silicon design with lower voltage that will ease current design requirements in Parallel ATA
• Hot plugging and delayed spin-up are other features well-suited to multi-drive systems.

Does SATA provide better performance than Parallel ATA?
Serial ATA supports data rates up to 6Gb/s, versus the embraced industry standard of 100 MB/s for Parallel ATA. The new interface also provides for command queuing to further boost system performance.

What is the long-term road map for SATA?
SATA defines a roadmap starting at 1.5 gigabits per second (equivalent to a data rate of 150MB/s) and migrating to 3.0 gigabits per second (300 MB/s), evolving to today’s 6.0 gigabits per second transfer rate, and then to even higher data rates. With its widespread usage in the computing industry, the SATA bus architecture will continue to evolve and mature over time. New technologies and techniques in performance, power management, physical configuration, connection options and other storage-centric solutions are constantly being defined and developed, giving SATA a long and promising future.

How does SATA handle backward compatibility issues?
SATA supports legacy drivers for Parallel ATA. OEMs can deploy SATA today using existing parallel ATA drivers. Several vendors currently supply bridges for parallel-to-serial conversion for legacy devices.

Are there any known interoperability issues with SATA?
One of the primary requirements of SATA specifications is to maintain backward compatibility with existing operating system drivers to eliminate incompatibility issues.

How will operating systems handle SATA?
Because of the legacy support inherent in the specification, operating support will be simplified. The SATA specification allows for additional features to be added to applications. Additional features will be subject to normal driver validation processes.

Desktops, Mobile PCs, and Consumer Electronics

What are the compelling reasons why SATA is the preferred choice for use with desktops, mobile PCs and consumer electronics?
SATA was designed to simplify cabling and improve performance.

How pervasive is SATA in desktop and mobile computers?
According to analyst firm IDC, more than 1.1 billion SATA hard drives have shipped from 2001 through 2008. In 2008, SATA captured more than 98 percent of internal hard disk drive shipments, demonstrating that SATA technology is now used in the vast majority of desktop and mobile PCs. (Source: IDC Doc #215614, "Economic Crisis Response: Worldwide 2008-2012 Forecast Update," December 2008.)

For more information about SATA products, see the Integrators List, a reference tool provided on the SATA-IO website which includes information about the components that have passed the SATA-IO Interoperability Testing. The SATA Product Listing is another database featuring SATA products. Please inquire with specific vendors to understand their product roadmaps.

Beyond hard disks, what devices use SATA?
SATA supports all ATA and ATAPI devices, and is currently being used to provide solutions for: CDs, DVDs, tape devices, high capacity removable devices, SSDs (solid state drives), and Blu-ray Drives.

What connector options are available for SATA devices?
The SATA Revision 2.6 Specification defines the following connectors: an internal slimline cable and connector that enables SATA optical drives to achieve a smaller form factor; an internal Micro-SATA connector for 1.8-inch hard disk drives which facilities high-capacity SATA-based storage in ultra-mobile PC applications; and a mini-SATA internal/external multi-lane cable and connector that provides high-bandwidth connectivity for use in internal backplane designs and external eSATA or xSATA based protocols for external storage enclosures.

In additon to those listed above, SATA-IO offers two new connectors in the SATA Revision 3.0 Specification: the Low Insertion Force (LIF) connector for compact embedded storage applications, and the 7mm connector for optical disk drives, enabling thinner and lighter mobile notebook PCs.

What is eSATA?
External SATA (eSATA) is an external version of SATA that uses slightly different connectors that withstand wear and tear and static electricity. eSATA offers faster speed and better performance than existing external storage formats such as USB 2.0 and FireWire (IEEE 1394).

What are the benefits of using eSATA?

• Up to six times faster than existing external storage solutions
• Robust and user-friendly external connection
• High-performance and cost-effective expansion storage
• Up to two meter shielded cables and connectors
• Port multiplication to attach multiple disk drives on a single eSATA cable
• External Direct Attached Storage applications for notebooks, desktop, consumer electronics and entry servers, as well as support for multiple streams of content (such as parallel write and read on a digital video recorder, or DVR)

Servers and Networked Storage

What are the compelling reasons why SATA is a viable option for server and NAS networked storage?
Scalability—SATA is a point-to-point connection and allows multiple ports to be aggregated into a single controller that is typically located either on the motherboard or as an add-in RAID card. Through backplanes and external enclosures, SATA will be deployed in high-capacity server and networked-storage environments.

Cost—SATA was created, with desktop cost in mind, as a replacement for Parallel ATA. Initial hard disk drives (HDDs) are expected to be priced competitively for the desktop. With the scalable features of SATA combined with desktop price-points, greater storage capacity may be realized at a lower total solution cost than with traditional server and networked storage.

Cabling—SATA specifies a thin, point-to-point connection, which allows for easy cable routing within a system. This avoids master/slave, "daisy-chaining", and termination issues. Also, better airflow can be realized compared to systems with wider ribbon cables.

Performance—SATA technology delivers up to 6Gb/s of performance to each drive within a disk drive array.

What is the status of the SATA infrastructure?
SATA technology has gained tremendous ground since its introduction in 2001. According to analyst firm IDC, more than 1.1 billion SATA hard drives have shipped from 2001 to 2008. Last year, SATA captured more than 98% of internal hard disk drive shipments, demonstrating that SATA technology is now used in the vast majority of desktop and mobile PCs. (Source: IDC Doc #215614, "Economic Crisis Response: Worldwide 2008-2012 Forecast Update," December 2008.)

Additionally, the technology is increasingly being used in other types of devices, including optical disk drives, solid state drives, servers and external storage systems. SATA implementations are also making inroads in the enterprise market.

"The SATA interface has developed into the de facto standard HDD interface in computing applications," said John Ryding, IDC's research director for hard disk drives. "The new SATA Revision 3.0 Specification builds upon the current market success of SATA, and will help to solidify SATA as the predominant storage device interface for the foreseeable future."

Please inquire  with individual vendors on their specific product plans and expected availability.