Sata and Serial ata

RIPSTER · 08-28-06, 06:42 AM

Is there a difference between these connections or is SATA just an abreviation of serial ata, I was sure of them being the same till today when my friends dad who owns a computer business told me that SATA and Serial ATA were different connections, he showed me what looked like a scsi connection and said this was serial ata and that it differed to the SATA connection that is on H/D's. Just wanted to clear this up for my own knowledge

thnx

RIPSTER

David · 08-28-06, 07:01 AM

To my knowledge SATA is an abbreviation for serial ATA. There are two types of IDE non-SCSI drives:

- Parallel ATA (or PATA) using ribbon cables and molex power connectors.
- Serial ATA (or SATA) using smaller cables and usually a special SATA power connector.

SCSI is another animal altogether.

Robbie T · 08-28-06, 09:24 AM

It's a abreviation

meionm · 08-28-06, 09:53 AM

Serial ATA=SATA

Como · 08-29-06, 09:22 AM

maybe he should give that business away.

Although i've heard of serial attatched SCSI, which i thought was some software hack that went over the sata bus...

chas0039 · 08-29-06, 09:31 AM

There are three (so far) types of SATA and the eSATA uses a different plug.
See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SATA

i686 · 08-30-06, 10:55 AM

hi'
well, it seems to me that the first generation of SATA had also a molex
plug for compatibilty as it was only an interface to make them working as SATA, but rather just a tiny bit faster than an ATA133 ...
then the generation of now, either SATA or SATA II has only a sata plug,
and they run faster as they should always have run ... they are real SATA.

am I wrong here?

i686

ps; I have one of each inside my rig, an maxtor 80gb 3 years old, this one has a molew plug along with the sata one(small black thin plug)
and the latest I got a few weeks ago a maxtor 250gb, SATA II and this one has only a SATA plug.
the latest is a lot faster than the first one ... obviously

Quailane · 08-30-06, 11:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by i686

hi'
well, it seems to me that the first generation of SATA had also a molex
plug for compatibilty as it was only an interface to make them working as SATA, but rather just a tiny bit faster than an ATA133 ...
then the generation of now, either SATA or SATA II has only a sata plug,
and they run faster as they should always have run ... they are real SATA.

am I wrong here?

i686

ps; I have one of each inside my rig, an maxtor 80gb 3 years old, this one has a molew plug along with the sata one(small black thin plug)
and the latest I got a few weeks ago a maxtor 250gb, SATA II and this one has only a SATA plug.
the latest is a lot faster than the first one ... obviously

The molex power plug has nothing to do with the interface. Manufacturers put them on so that people without power supplies that had the sata power plugs could use the drives. Now they have stopped because power supplies come with the sata plugs. Also the interface has little to do with the speed of the drive.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chas0039

There are three (so far) types of SATA and the eSATA uses a different plug.
See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SATA

No, they all use the same plug. You can get some that snap in and others that don't, but they are all functionally identical.

jiggamanjb · 08-30-06, 11:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by i686

hi'
well, it seems to me that the first generation of SATA had also a molex
plug for compatibilty as it was only an interface to make them working as SATA, but rather just a tiny bit faster than an ATA133 ...
then the generation of now, either SATA or SATA II has only a sata plug,
and they run faster as they should always have run ... they are real SATA.

am I wrong here?

i686

ps; I have one of each inside my rig, an maxtor 80gb 3 years old, this one has a molew plug along with the sata one(small black thin plug)
and the latest I got a few weeks ago a maxtor 250gb, SATA II and this one has only a SATA plug.
the latest is a lot faster than the first one ... obviously

It really has nothing to do with connectors or speeds, but the technology it is using to process data ( ex. NCQ ) and cache size. I'm sure there are a couple other things to throw into the mix, but basically you can put almost all of these new fangled SATA II 3GB drives on the old PATA bus and they will run the same ( yes I know you can't really hook them up like that ). Reason is that most drives don't run any faster than 66Mb/s on average. Now burst speeds are a different story, but that is only for a few seconds and those speeds are barely breaking the 150Mb/s now.

chas0039 · 08-30-06, 01:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Quailane

No, they all use the same plug. You can get some that snap in and others that don't, but they are all functionally identical.

You must not be familiar with eSATA, but many people aren't. The plugs are very different.

The left is conventional, the right is eSATA.

Quailane · 08-31-06, 09:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chas0039

You must not be familiar with eSATA, but many people aren't. The plugs are very different.

The left is conventional, the right is eSATA.

Oh, sorry. I looked at the internal eSATA connector on my motherboard and it is the same as regular, but yeah I looked at the back connector and it is different.

08-28-06, 06:42 AM	Thread Starter #1
RIPSTER Member Join Date: May 2004 Location: England	Sata and Serial ata Is there a difference between these connections or is SATA just an abreviation of serial ata, I was sure of them being the same till today when my friends dad who owns a computer business told me that SATA and Serial ATA were different connections, he showed me what looked like a scsi connection and said this was serial ata and that it differed to the SATA connection that is on H/D's. Just wanted to clear this up for my own knowledge thnx RIPSTER __________________ Pentium Dual Core 3.4 2GB Corsair RAM Gigabyte-G41M -ES2L nVidia Geforce 8600GT Maxtor 320GB/80GB SATA HD TSSTcorp SH-S223C SATA DVDRW
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08-28-06, 07:01 AM	#2
David Forums Super Moderator Overclockers.com Lead Editor Join Date: Feb 2001 Location: Hiding from Americans and making pretty colours in a drybox in St Andrews	To my knowledge SATA is an abbreviation for serial ATA. There are two types of IDE non-SCSI drives: - Parallel ATA (or PATA) using ribbon cables and molex power connectors. - Serial ATA (or SATA) using smaller cables and usually a special SATA power connector. SCSI is another animal altogether. __________________ David J. Nelson MChem(Edin) PhD(Strath) AMRSC [Academia Profile] OC Forums Super Moderator // Overclockers.com Editor The Workhorse: [Lenovo W510] Intel Core i7-720QM / 8 GB DDR3 / nVidia Quadro FX880M / Crucial M4 256 GB SSD / Windows 7 The HTPC/Server: AMD Phenom X4 9650 / 6 GB DDR2 / nVidia 8300 / 5 TB of HDDs / Antec Solo II Case / Windows 7 The Gaming Rig: AMD Llano A6-3650 / 4 GB DDR3 / nVidia GTX260 / 2x 500 GB HDD in RAID0 / Antec Dark Fleet DF-85 Case / Windows 7 The Benchmarking Setup: Various LGA775 chips / Asus Rampage Formula / 2 GB OCZ 1066 MHz DDR2 / nVidia Quadro NVS 285 / 320 GB HDD / Windows 7 My research fellowship is eating all my time, so I may be slow to reply to emails and private messages.
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08-28-06, 09:24 AM	#3
Robbie T Registered Join Date: Aug 2006	It's a abreviation
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08-28-06, 09:53 AM	#4
meionm Member Join Date: Mar 2004	Serial ATA=SATA
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08-29-06, 09:22 AM	#5
Como Member Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Maine	maybe he should give that business away. Although i've heard of serial attatched SCSI, which i thought was some software hack that went over the sata bus... __________________ This space is for rent.* *I'm Lying
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08-29-06, 09:31 AM	#6
chas0039 Member Join Date: Jul 2006	There are three (so far) types of SATA and the eSATA uses a different plug. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SATA
	QUOTE Thanks

08-30-06, 10:55 AM	#7
i686 Member Join Date: May 2005 Location: French Mountains	hi' well, it seems to me that the first generation of SATA had also a molex plug for compatibilty as it was only an interface to make them working as SATA, but rather just a tiny bit faster than an ATA133 ... then the generation of now, either SATA or SATA II has only a sata plug, and they run faster as they should always have run ... they are real SATA. am I wrong here? i686 ps; I have one of each inside my rig, an maxtor 80gb 3 years old, this one has a molew plug along with the sata one(small black thin plug) and the latest I got a few weeks ago a maxtor 250gb, SATA II and this one has only a SATA plug. the latest is a lot faster than the first one ... obviously __________________ PSU : BeQuiet 750w MB : ASUS P8P67-M CPU : Intel Core I5 2500K/@4.0ghz Ram : GSkill 8gb (2x4) 1600 Cl8 Hs : Noctua NF12 - Exhaust fan only SSD :Crucial M4 128go / OCZ VertexII 60GB HDD :2xSpinpoint F1 Samsung Video : Nvidia Gforce GTX 570 Monitor : Viewsonic 27"
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