Hello dear friends! Artem Yushchenko is with you.

SATA1 standard – has a transfer speed of up to 150Mb/s
SATA2 standard – has a transfer speed of up to 300Mb/s
SATA3 standard – has a transfer speed of up to 600Mb/s
I am often asked why, when I test the speed of my drive (and the drive, for example, has a SATA2 interface and the motherboard has a port of the same standard), the speed is far from 300MB/s and not more.

In fact, the disk speed even of the SATA1 standard does not exceed 75MB/s. Its speed is usually limited by mechanical parts. Such as the spindle speed (7200 per minute for home computers), and also the number of platters in the disk. The more there are, the longer the delays in writing and reading data will be.

Therefore, in essence, no matter what interface of a traditional hard drive you use, the speed will not exceed 85 MB/s.

However, I do not recommend using IDE standard drives in modern computers because they are already quite slower than SATA2. This will affect the performance of writing and reading data, which means there will be discomfort when working with large amounts of data.
Recently, a new SATA3 standard has appeared, which will be relevant for disks based on solid-state memory. We will talk about them later.
However, one thing is clear: modern traditional SATA drives, due to their mechanical limitations, have not even developed the SATA1 standard yet, but SATA3 has already appeared. That is, the port provides speed but not disk.
However, each new SATA standard still brings some improvements, and with large volumes of information they will make themselves felt in good quality.

For example, the function is constantly being improved - Native Command Queuing (NCQ), a special command that allows you to parallelize read-write commands, for greater performance than the SATA1 and IDE interfaces cannot boast of.
The most remarkable thing is that the SATA standard, or rather its versions, are compatible with each other, which gives us monetary savings. That is, for example, a SATA1 drive can be connected to a motherboard with a SATA2 and SATA3 connector and vice versa.
Not long ago, the market for new storage devices, the so-called SSDs, began to develop (let me remind you that traditional hard drives are designated as HDD).

SSD is nothing more than flash memory (not to be confused with flash drives, SSD is tens of times faster than regular flash drives). These drives are quiet, heat up little and consume little energy. They support read speeds up to 270MB/s and write speeds up to 250-260MB/s. However they are very expensive. A 256 GB disk can cost up to 30,000 rubles. However, prices will gradually fall as the flash memory market develops.
However, the prospect of buying an SSD, for example 64GB, is very pleasant, because it works much faster than a regular disk on magnetic platters, which means you can install a system on it and get an increase in performance when loading the operating system and when working with a computer. Such a disc costs about 5–6 thousand rubles. I'm thinking about buying this myself.

These kind of drives fully exploit the SATA2 standards and they need the new SATA 3 interface like air than traditional drives. In the next six months, SSD drives will move to the SATA3 standard and will be able to demonstrate speeds of up to 560 MB/s in read operations.
Not long ago, I came across an IDE disk with a size of 40GB and was released more than 7 years ago (not mine, they gave it to me for repairs). I tested its speed characteristics and compared them with the SATA1 and SATA2 standards, since I myself have both SATA disks standards.

The measurements were carried out using the Crystal Disk Mark program, several versions. I found out that the accuracy of measurements from one version of the program to another is practically independent. The computer has a 32-bit operating system Windows 7 Maximum and a Pentium 4 - 3 GHz processor. Tests were also carried out on a processor with two Core 2 Duo E7500 cores overclocked to a clock frequency of 3.53 GHz. (standard frequency 2.93 GHz). According to my observations, the speed of reading and writing data is not affected by the processor speed.

This is what a good old IDE disk looks like; disks of this standard are still sold.

This is how an IDE drive is connected. Wide cable for data transmission. Narrow white – nutrition.

And this is what connecting SATA drives looks like – red data wires. And also in the photo you can see the IDE cable that connects to its connector.

Speed ​​results:

IDE standard speed. It is equal to 41 MB for writing and the same amount for reading data. Next come lines on reading sectors of various sizes in a variety of sizes.

Read and write speed SATA1. 50 and 49 MB for read and write speeds, respectively.

Read and write speed for SATA2. 75 and 74 MB for reading and writing, respectively.

And lastly, I’ll show you the results of testing one of the 4 GB flash drives from the excellent company Transcend. For flash memory the result is not bad:

Conclusion: The SATA1 and SATA2 interfaces (which took first place in the test results) are most preferable for use in a desktop home computer.

Sincerely, Artyom Yushchenko.

The SATA (Serial ATA) interface has almost been forgotten, but the continuity of generations makes us from time to time raise the question of the compatibility of SATA 2 and SATA 3. Today this concerns mainly the use of new SSD solid-state drives, as well as the latest models of hard drives connected to motherboards. boards released a couple of years ago. As a rule, when it comes to backward compatibility of devices, most users prefer not to notice the loss of performance, wanting to save money. The same thing happens with sata interfaces: the design of the connector allows the connection of both SATA 2 and SATA 3, there is no threat to the equipment if the connected device does not match the connector, so “let’s put it there and it works.”

There are no design differences between SATA 2 and SATA 3. A-priory, SATA 2 is a data exchange interface with a bandwidth of up to 3 Gbit/s, SATA 3 It also provides data exchange speeds of up to 6 Gbit/s. Both specifications have a seven-pin connector.

When it comes to hard drives, during normal operation we will not notice any difference between connecting the device via the SATA 3 and SATA 2 interfaces. The mechanics of the hard drive do not provide high speeds; 200 Mb/s can be considered practically the limit (with 3 Gb/s maximum throughput). The release of hard drives with the SATA 3 interface can be considered a tribute to the upgrade. Such drives are connected to the ports of the second revision without loss in data exchange speed.

Solid state drives are a completely different matter. SSD devices are available only with a SATA 3 interface. Although you can connect them to a SATA 2 port without threatening the system, high read and write speeds are lost. The indicators drop by about half, so the very use of expensive devices does not justify itself. On the other hand, due to technological features, an SSD will work faster than a hard drive even when connected to a slow interface, losing half the speed.

The SATA 3 interface operates at a higher frequency than the previous specification, so latency is minimized, and a solid-state drive with SATA 3 connected to the SATA 2 port will show higher performance than a hard drive with SATA 2. However, this will only be noticeable to the average user during testing , and not during normal work with applications.

A not critical, but significant difference between SATA 3 and SATA 2 is the improved power management of the device.

The difference between SATA 2 and SATA 3 is as follows:

1. The throughput of the SATA 3 interface reaches 6 Gbit/s.
2. The throughput of the SATA 2 interface reaches 3 Gbit/s.
3. For hard drives, SATA 3 can be considered useless.
4. When working with SSDs, SATA 3 provides high data transfer speeds.
5. The SATA 3 interface operates at a higher frequency.
6. The SATA 3 interface theoretically provides improved device power management.

Materials from http://thedifference.ru/ were used to create this article.

SATA (English: Serial ATA)- serial interface for data exchange with information storage devices. SATA is a development of the parallel interface, which after the advent of SATA was renamed PATA (Parallel ATA). - data cable connector. Hard drive data cable connector -

Description SATA

SATA uses a 7-pin connector instead of PATA's 40-pin connector. The SATA cable has a smaller area, due to which the resistance to air blowing through the computer components is reduced, and wiring inside the system unit is simplified.

Due to its shape, the SATA cable is more resistant to multiple connections. The SATA power cord is also designed to accommodate multiple connections. The SATA power connector supplies 3 supply voltages: +12 V, +5 V and +3.3 V; however, modern devices can operate without +3.3 V, which makes it possible to use a passive adapter from a standard IDE to SATA power connector. A number of SATA devices come with two power connectors: SATA and Molex.

The SATA standard abandoned the traditional PATA connection of two devices per cable; each device is assigned a separate cable, which eliminates the problem of the impossibility of simultaneous operation of devices located on the same cable (and the resulting delays), reduces possible problems during assembly (there is no problem of Slave/Master device conflict for SATA), eliminates the possibility of errors when using non-terminated PATA- loops.

The SATA standard supports the command queuing function (NCQ, starting with SATA Revision 2.x).

The SATA standard does not provide for hot-swapping of the active device (used by the Operating System) (up to SATA Revision 3.x), additionally connected drives must be disconnected gradually - power, cable, and connected in the reverse order - cable, power.

SATA connectors

SATA devices use two connectors: 7-pin (data bus connection) and 15-pin (power connection). The SATA standard provides the ability to use a standard 4-pin Molex connector instead of a 15-pin power connector. Using both types of power connectors at the same time may damage the device.

The SATA interface has two data transfer channels, from controller to device and from device to controller. LVDS technology is used to transmit the signal; the wires of each pair are shielded twisted pairs.

There is also a 13-pin combined SATA connector used in servers, mobile and portable devices for slim CD/DVD drives. Devices are connected using a SATA Slimline ALL-in-One Cable. It consists of a combined connector of a 7-pin connector for connecting the data bus and a 6-pin connector for connecting the device’s power supply. In addition, to connect to these devices, servers use a special adapter.

Using http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/SATA

The most interesting comments on the colors of the SATA power connector cable:

RU2012:"Adapters are available to convert a 4-pin Molex connector to a SATA power connector. However, since 4-pin Molex connectors do not provide 3.3 V, these adapters only provide 5 V and 12 V power and leave the 3.3 V lines disabled. This does not allow the use of such adapters with drives that require 3.3 V power - orange wire.

Recognizing this, hard drive manufacturers have largely left support for the 3.3V orange power cable option in their storage devices - power lines are not used in most devices.

HOWEVER, WITHOUT 3.3V POWER (orange wire), the SATA DEVICE MAY NOT BE ABLE TO HOT PLUG THE DISK..." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA

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SATA(Serial ATA) - a serial interface for data exchange with storage devices, usually hard drives.
SATA is a development of the ATA (IDE) interface, which after the advent of SATA was renamed PATA (Parallel ATA).

The SATA standard originally specified a bus speed of 1.5 GHz, providing approximately 1.2 Gbps (150 MB/s) of bandwidth.
The 20% performance loss is explained by the use of the 8B/10B encoding system, in which for every 8 bits of useful information there are 2 service bits.

The bandwidth of SATA I (SATA/150) is slightly higher than that of the Ultra ATA bus (UDMA/133).
The main advantage of SATA over PATA is the use of a serial bus instead of a parallel one.

The SATA II standard (SATA/300) operates at 3 GHz and provides throughput up to 2.4 Gbit/s (300 MB/s).

SATA connectors on the motherboard

Theoretically, SATA I and SATA II devices should be compatible (both SATA/300 controller and SATA/150 device, and SATA/150 controller and SATA/300 device) due to support for speed matching (downward), however, for some devices and controllers require manual setting of the operating mode (for example, on Seagate HDDs that support SATA/300, a special jumper is provided to force the SATA/150 mode on).

At the moment, the SATA-2.5 standard, which complements the previous ones and combines previous standards into one document, is no longer divided into SATA I and SATA II.
It provides the ability to increase operating speed up to 600 Mbit/s (6 GHz).

To be very precise, this is a planned step-by-step promotion of three generations of the Serial ATA interface to the market - the second should provide speeds of up to 300 Mb/s, and the third, accordingly, up to 600 Mb/s.

SATA data connector

SATA uses a 7-pin connector instead of PATA's 40-pin connector.
The SATA standard provides for hot-plug devices and a command queuing (NCQ) function.
LVDS technology is used for signal transmission.

The SATA cable has a smaller area, which reduces the resistance to air blowing across the computer components and improves system cooling.
Due to its shape, it is more resistant to multiple connections.

SATA power connector

The 15-pin SATA power cord is also designed to accommodate multiple connections.
The SATA power connector supplies 3 power voltages: +12 V, +5 V and +3.3 V, however, modern devices can operate without +3.3 V, which makes it possible to use a passive adapter from a standard IDE to SATA power connector.

A number of SATA devices come with two power connectors: SATA and 4-pin Molex.
Using both types of power connectors at the same time may damage the device.

Pinout

G- grounding (Ground)
R- reserved
D1+, D1-- data transmission channel from the controller to the device
D2+, D2-- data transmission channel from the device to the controller
The wires of each pair (D1+, D1- and D2+, D2-) are shielded twisted pairs.

The SATA standard abandoned the traditional PATA connection of two devices per cable; each device is provided with a separate cable, which reduces delays when two devices operate simultaneously on the same cable, and reduces possible problems during assembly (there is no problem of conflict between Slave/Master devices for SATA).

eSATA logo

eSATA(External SATA) - interface for connecting external devices.

eSATA Specifications:

Requires two cables for connection: a data bus and a power cable;
. The maximum length of the data cable is 2 m;
. The average practical data transfer rate is higher than USB or IEEE 1394;
. Significantly less load on the central processor;
. Purpose: external and internal connection of devices;
. It has built-in error control tools - ECC, so that data integrity is guaranteed;
. Supports hot-plug mode.

There is also a standard SAS(Serial Attached SCSI), which provides connection via the SATA bus to devices controlled by a set of SCSI commands.
Being backward compatible with SATA, it theoretically makes it possible to connect any devices controlled by the SCSI command set via this interface - not only a hard drive, but also scanners, printers, etc.

Compared to SATA, SAS provides a more advanced topology, allowing one device to be connected in parallel across two or more buses.
Bus expanders are also supported, allowing you to connect several SAS devices to one port.

The SATA 1 interface is almost forgotten, but the generations that replaced it periodically make us think about the issue of compatibility between SATA 2 and SATA 3. As a rule, this issue is relevant for SSDs and the latest HDD models connected to older motherboards. In this case, there is a question about backward compatibility of components; many users, wanting to save money, usually do not want to pay attention to performance losses. The situation is the same - the connector can be connected to both SATA 2 and SATA 3, but the equipment does not complain about this in any way, so we connect it - and everything works.

Difference between SATA 3 and SATA 2 in terms of design - none. SATA 2 is a data exchange interface with a maximum speed of up to 3 Gbit/s, SATA 3 can completely increase the speed by 2 times - up to 6 Gbit/s.

If we take a regular HDD, then connecting it to a SATA 3 motherboard, there will not be much difference in compared to SATA 2. It's all about the mechanics of the hard drive - it cannot provide high data transfer speeds, and the actual maximum can be considered a speed of 200-250 Mb/s - this is taking into account the fact that the maximum throughput is 300 Mb/s or 3 Gb/s. Therefore production hard drives with SATA 3- This is nothing more than a commercial move. Such a drive can be connected to sata 2 port and not notice a loss in data exchange speed.

A different situation is with SSD devices, which are usually produced only with a SATA 3 interface, but they can also be connect to SATA 2 port. In this case, the read and write speeds are significantly lower than those declared by the manufacturer on 50-70% . Therefore the application SSD on old motherboards with the SATA 2 interface, from the point of view of speeding up work, it is not rational. Mechanical stability and low power consumption can be a positive effect, but these 2 advantages are only relevant for portable devices - laptops, netbooks, slimbooks or ultrabooks. Although, on the other hand, an SSD, due to its technological features, will work faster than a hard drive even when connected to a slow interface, losing more than half of the maximum possible data transfer speed.

SATA 3 works on higher frequenciesthan the 2nd version, thereforedelays are reduced, and even a solid-state drive with SATA 3 connected to the SATA 2 port will work faster than a hard drive with SATA 2. But the average user will be able to notice the difference only when testing or starting Windows; during normal work with applications, the difference is almost invisible.

A not critical, but significant difference between SATA 3 and SATA 2 is the improved power management of the device. This improvement is especially relevant for portable devices.

The difference between SATA 2 and SATA 3 is as follows:

• The throughput of the SATA 3 interface reaches 6 Gbit/s, and SATA 2 reaches 3 Gbit/s.
• For hard drives, SATA 3 can be considered useless.
• When working with SSDs, SATA 3 provides high data transfer speeds.
• The SATA 3 interface operates at a higher frequency.
• The SATA 3 interface theoretically provides improved device power management.