Serial ATA Technology - FAQ
- General SATA Questions
- Serial ATA II Questions
- Transition from 3.5" to 2.5" Form Factor
- More Information
General SATA Questions
Q: What is Serial ATA (SATA)?
A: Serial ATA is an evolutionary interface for the high-speed transfer of data in PCs, workstations, and laptops. Rather than
communicate 16 bits at a time over a parallel bus, Serial ATA sends one bit over a serial cable at a much higher frequency
than currently possible achieving higher transfer rates.
Q: Why is Fujitsu leading the way with Serial ATA?
A: Fujitsu is the first company to offer Serial ATA on a 2.5" hard drive. Fujitsu was also one of the first disk drive companies
to commit to Serial ATA and the first to demonstrate full compliance to the specification. In addition, Fujitsu is a contributor
to the Serial ATA Working Group leading the effort in marketing and creating the spec for SATA. Fujitsu now offers it's 2nd
generation of SATA Hard Disk Drives (HDD).
Q: Why do I need Serial ATA?
A: The notebook segment of the industry is transitioning to Serial ATA from Parallel ATA over the next two years. This is
driven by the advancement in silicon technology which makes the older parallel connection scheme outdated, and impossible
to support. In addition, as hard disk drive performance increases, the additional performance capability of Serial ATA will
be required. Backup storage is requiring more diverse topologies in storage requirements. SATA can be used in conjunction
with SATA in the same configuration, thus making SATA easy to integrate. Less power consumption is also a factor that is helping
system integrators shift to this interface.
Q: How does Serial ATA differ from Parallel ATA?
A: 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 greater flexibility in regard to system configuration and hot pluggability. With these enhancements, system builders can
create new solutions with fewer limitations and will experience greater interoperability with other interfaces. Serial ATA
supports data rates up to 150 MB/s, versus the embraved industry standard of 100 MB/s for Parallel ATA. The new interface
also provides for command queuing to further boost system performance.
Q: Are Serial ATA and Parallel ATA backward compatible?
A: 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.
Q: Do I need new cables and adaptors for Serial ATA? Do any systems have native support for Serial ATA?
A: Serial ATA uses a one-meter cable with a six-pin connector. Eventually, the adaptors will be integrated into the host control
on the motherboard. In the interim, multiple suppliers offer PCI connected adaptors that operate SATA.
Q: What other HDD companies are supporting the Serial ATA interface?
A: Seagate, Maxtor, Western Digital, Hitachi (HGST) and Samsung all have SATA products in the market. For the 2.5" market,
Fujitsu was the first to market with SATA products. HGST and Seagate also have 2.5" SATA products in 2005.
Q: What applications are best suited for 2.5" Serial ATA drives?
A: Beyond the traditional laptop PC, 2.5" SATA drives are particularly well suited for array and RAID applications, blade
servers, and other near-line storage opportunities.
Q: What performance improvements can I expect from Serial ATA?
A: Initial implementations of Serial ATA have 1.5Gb/s (150 MB/sec). 3Gb/s (300MB/s) will be available in 2006, while 6Gb/s
(600 MB/sec) will be in the market in 2009. Native Command Queuing is also available with SATA.
Q: Is a Serial ATA drive simple to install/integrate into a storage subsystem?
A: Because of its software compatibility and the point-to-point connection, Serial ATA is even easier to install than Parallel
ATA—no jumpers, no Master/Slave setting.
Q: Where do you expect Serial ATA to play in the networked storage space?
A: Serial ATA is expected to completely replace parallel ATA in the networked storage space. Serial ATA has significant benefits
over Parallel ATA, which will likely extend its networked storage applications especially where price/performance is the key
selection criteria. It is also used in conjunction with Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) HDDs for back-end storage requirements.
Serial ATA II Questions
Q: What is Serial ATA II?
A: Serial ATA II is the next version of the Serial ATA specification. It will provide additional enhancements to Serial ATA
in two phases. Phase I is focused on enhancements for the cost-sensitive server and networked storage market segments and
Phase II is focused on faster signaling speed for all segments.
Q: Will Serial ATA II be backward compatible with Serial ATA 1.0?
A: Yes, they will be fully compatible. Serial ATA II drives will be backward compatible with Serial ATA 1.0 hosts, and will
also run on today's operating systems. Serial ATA 1.0 drives will also work with Serial ATA II hosts.
Q: Are the benefits of Serial ATA II necessary for the networked storage space?
A: No, Serial ATA 1.0 with features such as hot plug, longer cabling, improved reliability, and higher performance meets the
needs of the entry server and networked storage market segments. Phase 1 of Serial ATA II features address additional needs
such as enclosure services and backplane interconnect that make it more attractive for OEMs in these markets.
Transition from 3.5" to 2.5" Form Factor
Q: What benefits are there to using 2.5" hard disk drives versus 3.5" hard disk drives?
A: The physical size and lower power dissipation of 2.5" drives allows up to four drives to be installed in the same physical
space where one 3.5" drive would be. This allows greatly increased performance and data security options that can only be
achieved with multiple drives. 2.5" drives are also designed to be quieter, which is appreciated in an office or home environment.
With Fujitsu's leading technology, the capacity of 2.5" drives will meet all but the most demanding applications.
More Information
Q: Where can I find more information on Fujitsu hard disk drive technology?
A: More information about Fujitsu hard disk drives can be found at us.fujitsu.com/hdd.
Q: How can I get more information on Serial ATA? What other companies support the move to SATA?
A: More information can be found at www.sata-io.org. In addition, this site includes a list of supporting companies.
