SATA versus PATA

The acronyms SATA and PATA refer to the way in which data is
encoded and transported electronically. Parallel interfaces break
a byte into eight bits and send each bit down individual wires. A
clock signal is sent down a separate wire. On the receiving end,
with each stroke of the clock, the eight bits are re-assembled into
a byte. Thus, a bunch of relatively slow signals sent down a
common bus can be aggregated into a single fast signal. The
frequency with which the clock strikes is typically measured in
megahertz (MHz); if you multiply the number of MHz by the
number of bytes transferred with each cycle, you get the speed
of the bus in megabytes per second. Serial interfaces also rely on
a clock to identify the individual bits of data. The difference is
that the bits all run down the same set of wires along with the
clock signal.
Should you care? Probably not; as long as your data reliably gets
transferred, your job is done.
Is there something wrong with parallel signaling?
Not really. The biggest challenge for parallel signaling is that, as
the clock gets faster and faster, it is increasingly difficult from
an engineering perspective to ensure that all of the related bits
arrive at the end of the cable at the same stroke of the clock. If
they don't, you get a transmission error. Thus, in order for
parallel interfaces to get faster and faster, they require tighter
and tighter cabling specifications.
Should you care which kind of cable is used? Probably not, but
PC manufacturers may prefer a skinny SATA cable to a bulky

PATA cable if it makes it quicker and easier for them to

assemble PCs.
Which is faster?
Serial is not necessarily faster than parallel. For instance,
Parallel SCSI has a maximum transfer rate of 320MBps. Fibre
Channel, a serial implementation of SCSI, peaks out at
200MBps. SATA currently has a 150MBps rate, although
300MBps is expected by 2005. PATA maxes out at 133MBps.
Should you care about the bus speed of your drive? No, because
you are smart enough to know the difference between theoretical
bandwidth and actual throughput! There are no disk storage
systems on the market today (nor will there be any, any time
soon) that can take advantage of the additional bandwidth that
SATA promises. In other words, SATA is not inherently faster
than PATA.
Why SATA?
When it comes to enterprise storage systems, SATA has one big
advantage over PATA: Its specs provide for hot-plugging. Before
SATA, manufacturers had to engineer a solution for hotplugging drives. However, all of the leading vendors of ATA
storage devices have already engineered these solutions, so
SATA does not solve any major problems. There is not
immediate reason for them to switch to SATA.
Should you care if your drives use an industry standard method
of hot-plugging or a proprietary one? Probably not. All drive
vendors produce their own drive sleds anyway. How they
implement them is nobody's business but their own.

Why not SATA?

The biggest problem with SATA is that it is new to the market,
so the patterns of supply and demand have not been balanced. It
is difficult to find consistent stock of high-capacity SATA drives;
however, it is relatively easy to get PATA variants. Also, highcapacity SATA disks are not yet available, and when they
become available, the supply will likely be constrained. For the
consumer, short supply means higher prices. In fact, highcapacity SATA drives cost about 10% more than the same drive
with PATA. For the vendors who are actively shipping disk-array
systems, it is vital that they have a consistent supply of
components. Without a consistent supply, they cannot fulfill
orders and could run into problems supplying replacement parts.
Should you care if you have to wait a long time for your
shipments? Should you mind if there is no stock on replacement
parts when you have a drive failure? I'm guessing you will.
SATA-1 versus SATA-2
We should see the next generation of SATA drives in about
2005. These devices will have new features that are not likely to
be available in PATA. In particular, SATA-2 will support
environmental monitoring inside the disk enclosure. This will
allow SATA and Serial SCSI (yes, SCSI is getting a new serial
interface, too!) to use the sameor at least very similar
enclosures. Again, this makes life easier for manufacturers and
does not directly impact the user.
Is SATA all hype?

Certainly not. From the perspective of a manufacturer, SATA

will make it easier and less costly to design and deliver storage
subsystems and computers with internal storage. This, in turn,
may result in lower prices for you, the user. How much lower?
Well, maybe a few bucks and maybe enough for you to care.
In the meantime, SATA does have some real advantages on the
desktop. In particular, SATA offers standardized support for
tagged command queuing, a performance enhancement typically
found on SCSI and Fibre Channel drives.
This feature could do wonders for application software but it is
not likely to affect performance in drives behind a RAID
controller.
The bottom line
By the time SATA-2 comes out, all of the leading storage
subsystem makers will have switched to SATA to take advantage
of its enterprise features. By then, the supply and prices of SATA
will be in line with PATA, and SATA will dominate the market.
Will you care? Hopefully not! There are better things in life to
care about. In the meantime, PATA is fine and SATA is fine. You
should focus your choice on the subsystem, not the drive
interface
Parallel ATA (PATA) and Serial ATA (SATA) comparison
What are the difference between PATA and SATA?
Parallel ATA (PATA) and Serial ATA (SATA) are interface
standards for connecting storage devices such as HDD, SSD,
floppy drives, and CD-ROM drives in computers.

PATA

SATA

Data burst
Rate

Up to 133MB/s

Up to 150 MB/s
(SATA I)
Up to 300 MB/s
(SATA II)

Sustained
throughput

52MB/s

55MB/s

Cable pins

40

Power connect
pins

15

Cable length

18"

40" (1 meter)

Hot pluggable

No

Yes

Power
consumption

5V

250mV

Yes (Drive 0 or
Drive 1)

No

Jumper settings

Parallel vs. Serial ATA

by Lucas Frawley
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Introduction
If someone were to say they preferred a serial connection to a
parallel connection, most would laugh at them uncontrollably.
Serial COM ports have always been known to be one of the
slowest connections in modern computers. However, the newest
version of Advanced Technology Attachment (ATA), Serial ATA,
is set to sweep parallel ATA off its feet.
PATA vs. SATA
Hardware, Configurations & Pictures
Conclusion

PATA vs. SATA

Parallel ATA (PATA) has been the industry standard for
connecting hard drives and other devices in computers for well
over a decade. However, due to a few major limitations, PATA
could be a quickly dying breed with the introduction of Serial
ATA (SATA). To compare, PATA cables are limited to only 18
inches long, while SATA cables can be up to 1 meter in length,
which is less than 40 inches. It is possible to have longer cables
but, due to attenuation, these longer cables are generally more
trouble than they are worth.
PATA cables are large and bulky and can easily restrict airflow.
With the onslaught of better and faster devices, computers
continue to generate more heat and this can cause many
problems including complete computer failure. PATA cables are
40 wires wide and they block precious space, which can restrict
airflow greatly. SATA cables are only 7 pins wide and, with their
longer maximum length, can be easily routed to not restrict any
airflow at all. The change to serial transfer is what allows the
cable to be so thin, only two data channels are required, one for
sending and one for receiving data. Parallel cables use multiple
wires for both sending and receiving and this technology uses a
total of 26 wires for data transfer.
Another comparison is that SATA devices require much less
power than PATA. Chip core voltages continue to decline and,
because of this, PATA's 5-volt requirement is increasingly
difficult to meet. In contrast, SATA only requires 250 mV to
effectively operate. SATA is also hot-swappable meaning that
devices can be added or removed while the computer is on
(depends on OS features to detect new hardware after hot-swap).

The last, and most important, difference is the maximum

bandwidth between the two technologies. The true maximum
transfer rate of PATA is 100 MB/sec with bursts up to 133
MB/sec. With the first introduction of SATA, the maximum
transfer rate is 150 MB/sec. This is supposed to increase every 3
years with a maximum transfer of 300 MB/sec in 2005 and 600
MB/sec in 2008. Finally, SATA doesn't require any changes to
existing operating systems for implementation. SATA is 100%
software compatible and, with SATA adapters, some hardware
doesn't have to be immediately replaced.
Parallel
Serial ATA
ATA
100
MB/s
Maximum
with
Speed
bursts up
to 133
MB/s
18
Cable Length
Inches

150 MB/s
Currently
300 MB/s
by 2005 and
600 MB/s
by 2008
1 Meter
(about 40
inches)

Cable Pins

40

Power
Connector
Pins

15

Data transfer
wires used

26

Power

5V

250 mV

Consumption
Hot
Swappable?

No

Yes

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Hardware, Configurations & Pictures
Between the last quarter of 2002 and the first quarter of 2003,
motherboards with onboard SATA adapters were released to the
public market. For users that are not ready to purchase new
motherboards, SATA RAID controllers are available as well.
Most Hard drive manufacturers released their first SATA hard
drives for sale in the first or second quarter of 2003. For those
that would like to take advantage of SATA's longer and thinner
cabling requirements without having to purchase new hard
drives, SATA adapters, can be purchased to convert current
drives to accept SATA cables. To fully implement the SATA
standard a new motherboard, a new hard drive or other storage
device and a new power supply or power adapter must be
purchased. Its unknown how soon power supplies with new
SATA power connectors will be available for sale but, for the
time being, power adapters, can be used with existing power
supplies.
When looking at the hardware for serial connections, one can
easily see the differences between it and parallel ATA. A sideby-side comparison of the two connectors on a motherboard is
shown in figure 1. As shown, the SATA connector is much
smaller than its parallel counterpart. This effectively means that

motherboard manufacturers will have more room to include

more on board options as well as being able to offer better board
layouts, as this will not be so restricted by the ATA connectors.

(Fig. 1) These pictures show the difference in size of PATA

and SATA connectors.

Furthermore, a look at figure 2 shows a PATA cable on the left

and an SATA cable on the right.As is easily apparent, the SATA
cable is much more builder friendly and can be easily routed out
of the way in a case due to its length and flexibility.

(Fig. 2) SATA is the undisputed champion in terms of size

and flexibility of cables.

Figure 3 shows an SATA power adapter with a 15-pin connector

as opposed to the customary 4 pin connectors in parallel ATA.
The new 15-pin connector may sound as though it would be a
hindrance in comparison to the older ones but the two
connectors measure almost the same width. The reason for the
15-pin connector is so that different voltages are supplied to the
appropriate places. In addition to the customary 5v and 12v
wires, new 3.3v wires are included for the new devices. 9 of the
pins provided are for the positive, negative and ground contacts
for each voltage. The remaining 6 connectors are for the hotswappable feature of SATA, designating an additional two
contacts per voltage for this.

(Fig. 3) As seen in the picture above, SATA power connectors

are still the same size as current power connectors even
though they have a total of 15 contacts.

As discussed earlier in this article, SATA to PATA adapters are

currently available to allow existing hard drives to be used with

new motherboards or controller cards and one is shown below in

figure 4.

The package, made by Soyo, includes the SATA to PATA

adapter, 1 SATA cable and a short instructional manual. To
connect this to a hard drive, simply connect the 40-pin PATA
adapter to the connector on the drive as shown in figure 5. Also,
7 jumpers will have to be set according to the instructions shown
in the manual.

Then, connect one end of the serial cable to the adapter and the

other end to a motherboard or controller card. Finally, connect a

power connector to both the hard drive and the SATA adapter.
This device can be used to connect a PATA drive to a SATA
connector on a motherboard or controller card, connect a SATA
drive to a PATA connector on a motherboard or, with the use of
two adapter kits, connect a PATA drive to a PATA connector on a
motherboard using an SATA cable. Figure 6 below shows a
comparison of the inside of a computer case with a PATA cable
connected to a hard drive and a SATA cable connected to a hard
drive.

(Fig. 5) Standard PATA cable connection.

(Fig. 6) Its quite easy to distinguish the winner here: SATA

takes the gold without a doubt.

| Go To Top |
Conclusion
It is unknown how quickly most consumers will begin using
Serial ATA devices. The majority of current PC users will not
want to trade in their existing system just to take advantage of a
few extra MB/s. However, many technical users and PC junkies
may find themselves huddled over their favorite suppliers?
website waiting for the instant the next set of SATA drives
become available for sale. Furthermore, many Original
Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) will look to incorporate
SATA devices in their PCs in the near future. The Parallel ATA
interface is one of the few aspects of a computer system that has
remained unchanged for many years. However, it appears PATA
may be in search for its final resting spot once Serial ATA begins
to consume the retail market.