| The hard drive acronym SATA stands for "Serial | | | | eSATA port built in the options for utilising the larger |
| Advanced Technology Attachment" and is really the | | | | capacity, faster flash thumb drives become available |
| data transportation device or bus that carries the | | | | to us. |
| information between the hard drive and the | | | | Alongside this flexibility that becomes available for the |
| computer itself. There are many other types of hard | | | | eSATA drives another improvement within the SATA |
| drive transport system such as Parallel ATA or | | | | specification over the older PATA and SCSI |
| "PATA" and Small Computer Systems Interface or | | | | specifications is the positive aspect of the SATA |
| SCSI. These days the majority of computers are | | | | cable and connector designs. The older style flat |
| utilising the more robust and fast data storage | | | | design cables of PATA and especially SCSI where |
| devices that are SATA hard drives and although | | | | cumbersome and difficult to handle, the connectors |
| SCSI drives are still in use the PATA drive has all but | | | | could easily damage the pins that they plugged on to |
| been relegated into obsolescence. One of the main | | | | and the size of the cables limited and blocked the |
| reasons for this advantage of SATA hard drives is | | | | airflow efficiency of the PC's chassis. All of these |
| that they are fast and this is due to the SATA bus | | | | problems have been eliminated with the new design |
| and its super speed capability. | | | | cables which are slim and the flat style connectors |
| There are a group of items that make the SATA | | | | with their L shape make for simple and easy |
| hard drive such a fast and reliable storage medium | | | | connection of the device. The cables used on SATA |
| and the main one of these is the actual speed of the | | | | drives are also cheaper and do not suffer from the |
| SATA bus which with transfer speeds of up to | | | | length restrictions of the older PATA cables (you |
| 300MB/sec is more than enough to deal with the | | | | could use a SATA cable of up to three feet in length |
| demands of today's modern applications and is far | | | | without any degradation of signal). |
| superior to the transfer rates of the more obsolete | | | | Another real advantage of SATA is they are what is |
| mediums such as PATA. Of course as we the user | | | | known in the business as "hot swappable", this |
| make even more demands on our hardware and | | | | effectively means that the hard drive can be |
| expect such technology levels to produce super rich | | | | removed from and replaced in the system without |
| media content, providing us with highly complex and | | | | having to turn off the power, which is a major |
| realistic video gaming experiences and high definition | | | | advantage if you are utilising different data drives for |
| video then even these high speeds could be pushed | | | | example. (Obviously you would not do this if the |
| to their limits. | | | | drive was the computers boot drive). SATA hard |
| Whilst most consumers find the primary benefit of | | | | drives are pretty much the de facto standard now in |
| SATA hard drives to be the speed and reliability, | | | | all PC's and are more than adequate for most users |
| there are other aspects that are proving useful for | | | | and because of the backward compatibility built into |
| the newer types of solid state drives. With more and | | | | the standard any future upgrades to it will continue |
| more modern devices such as laptops and even | | | | to work with the current SATA hard drives. |
| desktop PC's now coming with an external SATA or | | | | |