▷ Sata: all the information you need to know and what is your future

If you have ever physically messed with the internal storage of your computer, it is very likely that you have already had to see your faces with SATA or Serial ATA, a true veteran of the interconnections of our teams that has been with us for almost two decades.

Index of contents

The origin of SATA

The 2000s were a period of great changes for the computing world, many of them derived from the need to adapt to the advances of the different components that make up a computer.

Thus, in 2003 the Serial ATA (or SATA), by Advanced Technology Attachment , an interface created for the connection of storage devices to the equipment and the transfer of data, would see the light of day.

The standard consists of two connections, one connector for information ("L" shaped) and one dedicated to the power supply necessary for the operation of some of these devices.

Its use within our teams

Its use encompasses all kinds of storage systems, from hard drives to optical disk drives. A task that until the exit of this interface was the task of the PATA standard, which was largely surpassed by the greater speed and the qualities that this connection brought after its launch.

In addition, the use of cheaper and easier to produce connectors and cabling was key to its rapid expansion, a domain that it has managed to maintain thanks to the updates that the standard has received over the years.

Different generations of the interface

These updates have been carried out by the different organizations that have helped the development and installation of the interface. Currently the SATA-IO organization, responsible for the current SATA III, is in charge of it.

For reference, here are some of the characteristics of the three generations of the interface:

• SATA 1.0 (SATA 1.5Gbits). The first generation of the interface, released in 2003, and with a transfer speed of 150MB / s. Despite its speed-like similarities to PATA, the SATA standard was future-proof and favored multi-tasking scenarios in file transmission. SATA 2.0 (SATA 3Gbits). The second version of the standard would arrive a year later. It has backward compatibility with the other connectors that use the interface and with higher transfer speeds. Two revisions of this version were released, the latest being 2.6. SATA 3.0 (SATA 6Gbits). The coat under which the interface is currently collected. It was released in 2008 and, since then, it has undergone several revisions that updated the features and compatibility of SATA, highlighting the appearance of mSATA and SATA Express.

The future of SATA

But they were not the only changes that the interface has had. The popularization of NVMe drives (which make use of PCIe) and similar formats have fueled the development of connections such as eSATA or mSATA, all related to the M.2 specification to keep the interface relevant even today. While other connection revisions, such as SATA Express, were designed to remain relevant.

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However, the limitations of this connection cannot compete with the speed that PCIe and NVMe drives can offer, so the future of internal storage could leave out, for the first time in almost twenty years, the long-lived interface in the future. Everything will depend on the performance of the SATA-IO organization and the evolution of the popular M.2 units. What did you think of this article? We want to know your opinion!