{"id":474,"date":"2020-08-18T19:23:47","date_gmt":"2020-08-18T20:23:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.linux-tutorial.info\/?page_id=77"},"modified":"2020-08-22T19:26:19","modified_gmt":"2020-08-22T20:26:19","slug":"this-is-the-page-title-toplevel-307","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.linux-tutorial.info\/?page_id=474","title":{"rendered":"Serial ATA"},"content":{"rendered":"\nSerial_ATA.html<\/title>\n<br \/><b><i>by James Pyles<\/i><\/b>\n<p>\nSerial ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment), drives began arriving on retail shelves in November of 2002. They\nuse a completely new interface between the hard drive and the motherboard and\nare quite likely to replace the standard ATA interface in the next few\nyears.<\/p>\n<p class=\"subtitle\">So just what is the big deal about Serial ATA drives?<\/p>\n<p>\nTo answer that, we need to delve into a bit of history.\nSince 1989, IDE drives have been the standard hard drive interface. Except for\nenlarging the pipeline from 33 to 100\/133 MB\/sec with the invention of ATA\nin 1998, nothing has changed about the interface between the HDD and the\nmotherboard. For almost 15 years (an eternity in the world of computer\ntechnology), the standard connection between the hard drive and the motherboard\nin PCs has been the same parallel interface.<\/p>\n<p class=\"subtitle\">So how is a Serial ATA drive different?<\/p>\n<p>\nSerial ATA or SATA drives\nare a new standard in HDD\/motherboard interfaces and are touted as the next\nmainstream storage interface. SATA drives are fast with the first generation\nhaving a volume of 150 MB\/sec compared to Parallel ATA (PATA) drive’s 100\nMB\/sec. Generation two (coming out in 2005) is predicted to go up to 300\nMB\/sec. This is also better than USB interfaces at 60 MB\/sec and generation two\nwill be better than current firewire volume of 200 MB\/sec.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nThe current ATA drive’s parallel interface will eventually\nbecome a throughput bottleneck, especially as drive densities continue to\nincrease. In 2001, major vendors were able to put 40 GB of storage on a hard\ndrive <i>per platter<\/i>. By the end of 2003, it\nwill likely be 80 GB and future densities are predicted at 120 GB per platter.\nThis impacts throughput because the more density, the more pressure to\npush data faster across the interface. <\/p>\n<p>\nSATA interfaces can\nmake use of cables twice as long as IDE cabling at a full one meter. The cable\nis thinner, .25 inches compared to a two inch IDE ribbon, and plugs into the\nSATA drive in a manner similar to a network cable. <\/p>\n<p>\nSATA\ndrives are also “hot swappable” meaning no more reboots, they are quiet\n(thanks to fluid bearings), but not quite silent, use less power overall, and\ncome with either a 2 or 8 MB cache.\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"subtitle\">Now for the downside<\/p>\n<p>\nCurrently, SATA drives have not yet entered the\nmainstream PC market. This is predicted to happen by 2004 when it is believed\nthat major vendors like Dell and HP will start offering SATA drives in their\nupper end systems. If you want to use a SATA drive in your PC, you will not\nonly have to purchase the drive, power supply and cable, but a PCI SATA adapter\ncard. Your motherboard must also be SATA capable. For SATA to enter the\nmainstream market, Intel will need to integrate this standard into their\nchipset\u2026planned by the middle or end of 2003. <\/p>\n<p>\nThe other downside: only one device can be used per port. This means that there is no\nRAID capacity for generation one SATA since you can’t run multiple drives on the\nsame channel.\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"subtitle\">SATA II<\/p>\n<p>\nThat’s right,\nthere’s more. The SATA working group announced that SATA II will allow\nadditional ports to support up to 15 drives. This will benefit mostly servers\nrunning multiple rack-mounted drives. <\/p>\n<p>\nOther extensions\nannounced by the group are native command queuing, giving hard drives the\nability to prioritize data requests from multiple CPUs, doubling the bandwidth\nfrom 1.5 to 3 GB\/sec, fallover switches for when high reliability is vital, and\nconnections for external SATA II drives. <\/p>\n<p>\nThe speed and\nincreased throughput of SATA drives are extremely important in the future of\nservers. While an end user is unlikely to notice the performance difference,\nthe speed improvement will be important in the use of RAID to operate multiple\ndrives. <\/p>\n<p class=\"subtitle\">Yeah, but how much does it cost?<\/p>\n<p>\nI found a comparison of Maxtor SATA and PATA drives.\nExtremeTech published a comparison between Maxtor’s DiamondMax Plus 9 PATA and\nthe Plus 9 SATA. Each drive has a formatted capacity of 200 GB, 66.67 per\nplatter and a rotational speed of 7200 RPM. The PATA drive will set you back\n$210 USD while the equivalent SATA drive is a bit more at $275. Maxtor’s SATA\nFAQ states that SATA drives will be typically a bit more than equivalent PATAs,\nthroughout 2003 but as SATA drives become more common, the prices will reach\nparity. The SATA Plus 9 currently comes in capacities of 60GB, 80GB, 120GB,\n160GB, and 200GB.<\/p>\n<p>\nNot trying to favor Maxtor, I went shopping\nat Atacom.com for comparable Seagate drives and looked at the Seagate PATA 80GB\nST380021A versus the SATA Barracuda V 80GB. The PATA drive costs $83.95 while\nthe equivalent Barracuda ran $125.95. <\/p>\n<p class=\"subtitle\">What about drivers?<\/p>\n<p>\nAccording to serialata.org, SATA supports legacy\ndrivers for PATA drives. In other words, you can install a SATA drive on a\nmotherboard with the appropriate PCI SATA adapter and use the OEM’s existing\nparallel ATA drivers. Vendors will begin supplying bridges for parallel to\nserial conversion for legacy devices. This being said, Seagate’s support page\nrecommends that, if your operating system (Windows 2000\/XP in this case) doesn’t\ndetect the SATA drive during installation, you may need to go to the vendor’s\nwebsite to acquire additional drivers. <\/p>\n<p>\nAlthough many newer motherboards have SATA controllers, not all do and obviously\nolder motherboards do not support SATA.\nIf you have a motherboard that does not support SATA, all is not lost.\nYou can buy extra SATA controller cards for between $20-$30 (US).\n<p>\nSilicon Image is\nproviding parallel to serial conversion for Linux. Their drivers are supplied\nby the Linux ATA development site. <\/p>\n<p class=\"subtitle\">SATA and Linux<\/p>\n<p>\nIn June 2003, Pogo Linux included three new Linux\nservers using Seagate SATA drives in its StorageWare line. They claim that\nthese servers are the first to use SATA for Linux. The StorageWare S140, S212,\nand S316 are all powered by Intel Xeon processors with Hyper-Threading\nTechnology. <\/p>\n<p>\nThe SATA drives are configured with a 3Ware\n8500 Escalade SATA RAID controller in a RAID 5 array. According to Pogo Linux,\nthis will enable the StorageWare servers to give high speed performance at a\nfraction of the cost of even the latest, high-end SCSI based servers. You might\nwant to save up your pennies if you’re considering a purchase as the prices are\n$3,499, $7,499, and 9,499 respectively for the above-listed servers. Pogo Linux\nalso produces the Velocity-DXWorkstation which comes with SATA, IDE, or SCSI\nstarting at $1,979. <\/p>\n<p>\nNone of this means you actually have to\nspend thousands of dollars to use SATA with Linux. You will, at this point,\nhave to buy the drive, connectors, power supply and adapter and perhaps download\nthe drivers. For a few hundred dollars, you’ll have all the materials to enter\nthe world of Serial ATA. Keep in mind that SATA drives are just now becoming\navailable in mass quantities and you will still have to wait until PC OEMs come\nwith SATA integrated. I mentioned above that this is predicted for 2004 but the\nMaxtor SATA FAQ page was particularly evasive. It’s likely that negotiations\nbetween the major relevant vendors are, as of this writing, still in progress.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nIf you plan to use SATA and Linux on a home or small office\nsystem, you will likely have to play around with the installation and\nconfiguration. As with anything new, there is uncharted territory to explore.\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Serial_ATA.html by James Pyles Serial ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment), drives began arriving on retail shelves in November of 2002. They use a completely new interface between the hard drive and the motherboard and are quite likely to replace the standard … <a href=\"http:\/\/www.linux-tutorial.info\/?page_id=474\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">→<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-474","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.linux-tutorial.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.linux-tutorial.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.linux-tutorial.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.linux-tutorial.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.linux-tutorial.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=474"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.linux-tutorial.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":696,"href":"http:\/\/www.linux-tutorial.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/474\/revisions\/696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.linux-tutorial.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}