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What is SATA & ATA Hard drives ???
I need to get a full explanation about these drives type and what they mean .. it would be nice if some one could give me the links to the relevant web sites ..
thnx
6 Answers
- 1 decade agoFavorite Answer
Parallel vs. Serial ATA
Introduction
If someone were to say they preferred a serial connection to a parallel connection, most would laugh at them uncontrollably. Serial COM ports have always been known to be one of the slowest connections in modern computers. However, the newest version of Advanced Technology Attachment (ATA), Serial ATA, is set to sweep parallel ATA off its feet.
* PATA vs. SATA
* Hardware, Configurations & Pictures
* Conclusion
PATA vs. SATA
Parallel ATA (PATA) has been the industry standard for connecting hard drives and other devices in computers for well over a decade. However, due to a few major limitations, PATA could be a quickly dying breed with the introduction of Serial ATA (SATA). To compare, PATA cables are limited to only 18 inches long, while SATA cables can be up to 1 meter in length, which is less than 40 inches. It is possible to have longer cables but, due to attenuation, these longer cables are generally more trouble than they are worth.
PATA cables are large and bulky and can easily restrict airflow. With the onslaught of better and faster devices, computers continue to generate more heat and this can cause many problems including complete computer failure. PATA cables are 40 wires wide and they block precious space, which can restrict airflow greatly. SATA cables are only 7 pins wide and, with their longer maximum length, can be easily routed to not restrict any airflow at all. The change to serial transfer is what allows the cable to be so thin, only two data channels are required, one for sending and one for receiving data. Parallel cables use multiple wires for both sending and receiving and this technology uses a total of 26 wires for data transfer.
Another comparison is that SATA devices require much less power than PATA. Chip core voltages continue to decline and, because of this, PATA's 5-volt requirement is increasingly difficult to meet. In contrast, SATA only requires 250 mV to effectively operate. SATA is also hot-swappable meaning that devices can be added or removed while the computer is on.
The last, and most important, difference is the maximum bandwidth between the two technologies. The true maximum transfer rate of PATA is 100 MB/sec with bursts up to 133 MB/sec. With the first introduction of SATA, the maximum transfer rate is 150 MB/sec. This is supposed to increase every 3 years with a maximum transfer of 300 MB/sec in 2005 and 600 MB/sec in 2008. Finally, SATA doesn't require any changes to existing operating systems for implementation. SATA is 100% software compatible and, with SATA adapters, some hardware doesn't have to be immediately replaced.
- 1 decade ago
ATA stands for Advanced Technology Attachment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Technology_A... and it is associated with the 80 pin data ribbon cable used for some hard drives. The idea was that it was faster to collect 80 pieces of information, separate and send them through a ribbon cable and then reassemble them on the other side. This is called parallel processing.
Technology has advanced in ways that now make it even feasable to send information so fast that the time spend disassembing and reassembling the data is no longer compensated by the 'parallel' processing. The idea is that we can send one part at a time much, much faster and quit mucking about on the hard drive controller card (which handled the bulk of the process). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA
Source(s): Wikipedia, Maximum PC - 1 decade ago
I'm going to put in a simple sentence
sata(serial ata) is just a new way to connect the HDD(harddrive) to the motherboard,all the new motherboards have them standard and are the new standard for connection where ata is the old standard
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- 1 decade ago
You may also tyr reading this articles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_ATA
hope this helps...