Serial ATA
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Serial ATA was designed to replace the older ATA (AT Attachment)
standard (also known as EIDE). It is able to use the same low level
commands, but serial ATA host-adapters and devices communicate via
a high-speed serial cable over two pairs of conductors. In contrast, the
parallel ATA (the redesignation for the legacy ATA specifications)
used 16 data conductors each operating at a much lower speed.
First-generation (1.5 Gbit/s) SATA ports on
a motherboard
SATA offers several compelling advantages over the older parallel
ATA (PATA) interface: reduced cable-bulk and cost (reduced from Year created: 2003
eighty wires to seven), faster and more efficient data transfer, and hot Supersedes: Parallel ATA (PATA)
swapping.
As of 2009, SATA has mostly replaced parallel ATA in all shipping Capacity 1.5, 3.0, 6.0 Gbit/s
consumer PCs. PATA remains in industrial and embedded applications Style: Serial
dependent on CompactFlash storage although the new CFast storage Hotplugging? Yes[1]
standard will be based on SATA.[2][3] External? Yes (eSATA)
Contents
1 SATA specification bodies
2 Features
2.1 Hotplug
2.2 Advanced Host Controller Interface
3 Throughput
3.1 SATA 1.5 Gbit/s (First generation)
3.2 SATA 3 Gbit/s (Second generation)
3.2.1 SATA II committee renamed SATA-IO
3.2.2 SATA II product marketing
3.3 SATA 6 Gbit/s (Third generation)
4 Cables, connectors, and ports
4.1 Data
4.2 Power supply
4.2.1 Standard connector
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4.2.2 Slimline connector
4.2.3 Micro connector
5 Topology
6 Encoding
7 External SATA
8 Pre-standard implementations
9 Backward and forward compatibility
9.1 SATA and PATA
9.2 SATA 1.5 Gbit/s and SATA 3 Gbit/s
10 Comparisons with other interfaces
10.1 SATA and SCSI
10.2 SATA in comparison to other buses
11 See also
12 Notes and references
13 External links
Features
Hotplug
All SATA devices support hotplugging. However, proper hotplug support requires the device be running in its
native command mode not via IDE emulation, which requires AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface). Some
of the earliest SATA host adapters were not capable of this and furthermore some older operating systems, such as
Windows XP, do not directly support AHCI.
As their standard interface, SATA controllers use the AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface), allowing
advanced features of SATA such as hotplug and native command queuing (NCQ). If AHCI is not enabled by the
motherboard and chipset, SATA controllers typically operate in "IDE emulation" mode which does not allow
features of devices to be accessed if the ATA/IDE standard does not support them.
Windows device drivers that are labeled as SATA are usually running in IDE emulation mode unless they explicitly
state that they are AHCI. While the drivers included with Windows XP do not support AHCI, AHCI has been
implemented by proprietary device drivers.[5] Windows Vista,[6] Windows 7, FreeBSD, Linux with kernel version
2.6.19 onward,[7] as well as Solaris and OpenSolaris have native support for AHCI.
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Throughput
The current SATA specifications detail data transfer rates as high as 6.0 Gbit/s per device. SATA uses only 4 signal
lines; cables are more compact and cheaper than PATA. SATA supports hot-swapping and NCQ.
First-generation SATA interfaces, now known as SATA 1.5 Gbit/s, communicate at a rate of 1.5 Gbit/s. Taking
8b/10b encoding overhead into account, they have an actual uncoded transfer rate of 1.2 Gbit/s. The theoretical
burst throughput of SATA 1.5 Gbit/s is similar to that of PATA/133, but newer SATA devices offer enhancements
such as NCQ which improve performance in a multitasking environment.
As of April 2009 mechanical hard disk drives can transfer data at up to 131 MB/s,[8] which is within the capabilities
of the older PATA/133 specification. However, high-performance flash drives can transfer data at up to
201 MB/s.[9] SATA 1.5 Gbit/s does not provide sufficient throughput for these drives.
During the initial period after SATA 1.5 Gbit/s finalization, adapter and drive manufacturers used a "bridge chip" to
convert existing PATA designs for use with the SATA interface. Bridged drives have a SATA connector, may
include either or both kinds of power connectors, and generally perform identically to their PATA equivalents. Most
lack support for some SATA-specific features such as NCQ. Bridged products gradually gave way to native
SATA products.
Soon after the introduction of SATA 1.5 Gbit/s, a number of shortcomings emerged. At the application level SATA
could handle only one pending transaction at a time—like PATA. The SCSI interface has long been able to accept
multiple outstanding requests and service them in the order which minimizes response time. This feature, native
command queuing (NCQ), was adopted as an optional supported feature for SATA 1.5 Gbit/s and SATA 3 Gbit/s
devices.
First-generation SATA devices operated at best a little faster than parallel ATA/133 devices. Subsequently, a
3 Gbit/s signaling rate was added to the physical layer (PHY layer), effectively doubling maximum data throughput
from 150 MB/s to 300 MB/s.
For mechanical hard drives, SATA 3 Gbit/s transfer rate is expected to satisfy drive throughput requirements for
some time, as the fastest mechanical drives barely saturate a SATA 1.5 Gbit/s link. A SATA data cable rated for
1.5 Gbit/s will handle current mechanical drives without any loss of sustained and burst data transfer performance.
However, high-performance flash drives are approaching SATA 3 Gbit/s transfer rate.
Given the importance of backward compatibility between SATA 1.5 Gbit/s controllers and SATA 3 Gbit/s devices,
SATA 3 Gbit/s autonegotiation sequence is designed to fall back to SATA 1.5 Gbit/s speed when in
communication with such devices. In practice, some older SATA controllers do not properly implement SATA
speed negotiation. Affected systems require the user to set the SATA 3 Gbit/s peripherals to 1.5 Gbit/s mode,
generally through the use of a jumper, however some drives lack this jumper. Chipsets known to have this fault
include the VIA VT8237 and VT8237R southbridges, and the VIA VT6420, VT6421A and VT6421L standalone
SATA controllers.[10] SiS's 760 and 964 chipsets also initially exhibited this problem, though it can be rectified with
an updated SATA controller ROM.
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Popular usage refers to the SATA 3 Gbit/s specification as Serial ATA II (SATA II or SATA2), contrary to the
wishes of the Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO) which defines the standard. SATA II was
originally the name of a committee defining updated SATA standards, of which the 3 Gbit/s standard was just one.
However since it was among the most prominent features defined by the former SATA II committee, and, more
critically, the term "II" is commonly used for successors, the name SATA II became synonymous with the 3 Gbit/s
standard, so the group has since changed names to the Serial ATA International Organization, or SATA-IO, to
avoid further confusion.
As of 2009, "SATA II" and "SATA 2" are the most common marketing terms for any "second-generation" SATA
drives, controllers or related accessories. Unfortunately, these terms have no specific meaning, since they are not
the proper official nomenclature. Also, the second-generation SATA standards only define a set of optional features
(3 Gb/s, NCQ — Native Command Queuing, staggered spin-up and hot-plugging) improving on the first generation
technology, but don't require including those features. Almost any SATA product with any set of features could
legitimately be described as "compatible" with these standards. Only careful research can determine which features
may be included in any particular "SATA II" product. [11] [12]
Serial ATA International Organization presented the draft specification of SATA 6 Gbit/s physical layer in July
2008,[13] and ratified its physical layer specification on August 18, 2008.[14] The full 3.0 standard was released on
May 27, 2009.[15] While even the fastest conventional hard disk drives can barely saturate the original SATA 1.5
Gbit/s bandwidth, Solid State Disk drives are close to saturating the SATA 3 Gbit/s limit at 250 MB/s net read
speed. Ten channels of fast flash can reach well over 500 MB/s with new ONFI drives, so a move from SATA 3
Gbit/s to SATA 6 Gbit/s would benefit the flash read speeds. As for the standard hard disks, the reads from their
built-in DRAM cache will end up faster across the new interface.[16]
A new Native Command Queuing (NCQ) streaming command to enable Isochronous data transfers for
bandwidth-hungry audio and video applications.
An NCQ Management feature that helps optimize performance by enabling host processing and management
of outstanding NCQ commands.
Improved power management capabilities.
A small Low Insertion Force (LIF) connector for more compact 1.8-inch storage devices.
A connector designed to accommodate 7 mm optical disk drives for thinner and lighter notebooks.
Alignment with the INCITS ATA8-ACS standard.
The enhancements are generally aimed at improving quality of service for video streaming and high priority
interrupts. In addition, the standard continues to support distances up to a meter. The new speeds may require
higher power consumption for supporting chips, factors that new process technologies and power management
techniques are expected to mitigate. The new specification can use existing SATA cables and connectors, although
some OEMs are expected to upgrade host connectors for the higher speeds.[17] Also, the new standard is
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are expected to upgrade host ATA - Wikipedia, thehigher
for the free encyclo…
speeds. Also, the new standard is
backwards compatible with SATA 3 Gbit/s.[18]
In order to avoid parallels to the common SATA II misnomer, the SATA-IO has compiled a set of marketing
guidelines for the new specification. The specification should be called Serial ATA International Organization:
Serial ATA Revision 3.0, and the technology itself is to be referred to as SATA 6 Gbit/s. A product using this
standard should be called the SATA 6 Gbit/s [product name]. The terms SATA III or SATA 3.0, which are
considered to cause confusion among consumers, must not be used.[19]
There is a special connector (eSATA) specified for external devices, and an optionally implemented provision for
clips to hold internal connectors firmly in place. SATA drives may be plugged into SAS controllers and
communicate on the same physical cable as native SAS disks, but SATA controllers cannot handle SAS disks.
There are SATA ports (on motherboards of a PC) that can use SATA data cable with locks or clips, thus, reducing
the chance of accidentally unplugging while the PC is turned on. So does the same with SATA power connector
and SATA data connector connected to a SATA HDD or SATA optical drive. Also, there are right-angled and
left-angled connectors only on one end of SATA data cable, which can only be used when connecting to a SATA
HDD or SATA optical drive.
Data
The SATA standard defines a data cable with seven conductors (3 Pin # Function
grounds and 4 active data lines in two pairs) and 8 mm wide wafer
connectors on each end. SATA cables can have lengths up to 1 metre 1 Ground
(3.3 ft), and connect one motherboard socket to one hard drive. PATA 2 A+ (Transmit)
ribbon cables, in comparison, connect one motherboard socket to up to
3 A− (Transmit)
two hard drives, carry either 40 or 80 wires, and are limited to
45 centimetres (18 in) in length by the PATA specification (however, 4 Ground
cables up to 90 centimetres (35 in) are readily available). Thus, SATA 5 B− (Receive)
connectors and cables are easier to fit in closed spaces and reduce
obstructions to air cooling. They are more susceptible to accidental 6 B+ (Receive)
unplugging and breakage than PATA, but cables can be purchased that 7 ground
have a locking feature, whereby a small (usually metal) spring holds the
8 coding notch
plug in the socket.
Power supply
Standard connector
Adapters exist which can convert a 4-pin Molex connector to a SATA power connector. However, because the 4-
pin Molex connectors do not provide 3.3 V power, these adapters provide only 5 V and 12 V power and leave the
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3.3 V lines unconnected. This precludes the use of such adapters with drives that require 3.3 V power.
Understanding this, drive manufacturers have largely left the 3.3 V power lines unused.
Slimline connector
SATA 2.6 first defined the slimline connector, intended for smaller form-factors; e.g., notebook optical drives.
Pin # Function
1 Device Present
2
5V
3
4 Manufacturing Diagnostic
5
Ground
6 A 6-pin Slimline Serial ATA power
connector. Note that pin 1 (device
present) is shorter than the others.
Micro connector
The micro connector originated with SATA 2.6. It is intended for 1.8-inch hard drives. There is also a micro data
connector, which it is similar to the standard data connector but is slightly thinner.
Pin # Function
1
3.3 V
2
3
Ground
4
5
5V
6
7 Reserved
8
Vendor Specific
9
Topology
SATA uses a point-to-point architecture. The connection between the controller
and the storage device is direct.
Separate point-to-point AC-coupled LVDS links are used for physical transmission between host and drive.
External SATA
eSATA, standardized in 2004, provides a variant of SATA meant for external
connectivity. It has revised electrical requirements in addition to incompatible
cables and connectors:
eSATA can be differentiated from USB 2.0 and FireWire external storage for
several reasons. As of early 2008, the vast majority of mass-market computers
have USB ports and many computers and consumer electronic appliances have
FireWire ports, but few devices have external SATA connectors. For small
form-factor devices (such as external 2.5-inch disks), a PC-hosted USB or
FireWire link supplies sufficient power to operate the device. Where a PC-
hosted port is concerned, eSATA connectors cannot supply power, and would
therefore be more cumbersome to use[22].
HDMI, Ethernet, and eSATA
Owners of desktop computers that lack a built-in eSATA interface can upgrade ports on a Sky+ HD Digibox
them with the installation of an eSATA host bus adapter (HBA), while
notebooks can be upgraded with Cardbus[23] or ExpressCard[24] versions of an eSATA HBA. With passive
adapters the maximum cable length is reduced to 1 metre (3.3 ft) due to the absence of compliant eSATA signal-
levels. Full SATA speed for external disks (115 MB/s) have been measured with external RAID enclosures.
Pre-standard implementations
Prior to the final eSATA specification, a number of products existed designed for external connections of SATA
drives. Some of these use the internal SATA connector or even connectors designed for other interface
specifications, such as FireWire. These products are not eSATA compliant. The final eSATA specification features
a specific connector designed for rough handling, similar to the regular SATA connector, but with reinforcements in
both the male and female sides, inspired by the USB connector. eSATA resists inadvertent unplugging, and can
withstand yanking or wiggling which would break a male SATA connector (the hard-drive or host adapter, usually
fitted inside the computer). With an eSATA connector, considerably more force is needed to damage the
connector, and if it does break it is likely to be the female side, on the cable itself, which is relatively easy to
replace.
At the device level, SATA and PATA (Parallel Advanced Technology Attachment) devices remain completely
incompatible—they cannot be interconnected. At the application level, SATA devices can be specified to look and
act like PATA devices.[25] Many motherboards offer a "legacy mode" option which makes SATA drives appear to
the OS like PATA drives on a standard controller. This eases OS installation by not requiring a specific driver to be
loaded during setup but sacrifices support for some features of SATA and generally disables some of the boards'
PATA or SATA ports since the standard PATA controller interface only supports 4 drives. (Often which ports are
disabled is configurable.)
The common heritage of the ATA command set has enabled the proliferation of low-cost PATA to SATA bridge-
chips. Bridge-chips were widely used on PATA drives (before the completion of native SATA drives) as well as
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standalone "dongles." When attached to a PATA drive, a device-side dongle allows the PATA drive to function as
a SATA drive. Host-side dongles allow a motherboard PATA port to function as a SATA host port.
The market has produced powered enclosures for both PATA and SATA drives which interface to the PC through
USB, Firewire or eSATA, with the restrictions noted above. PCI cards with a SATA connector exist that allow
SATA drives to connect to legacy systems without SATA connectors.
The designers of SATA aimed for backward and forward compatibility with future revisions of the SATA
standard.[26]
According to the hard drive manufacturer Maxtor, motherboard host controllers using the VIA and SIS chipsets
VT8237, VT8237R, VT6420, VT6421L, SIS760, SIS964 found on the ECS 755-A2 manufactured in 2003, do
not support SATA 3 Gbit/s drives. Additionally, these host controllers do not support SATA 3 Gbit/s optical disc
drives. To address interoperability problems, the largest hard drive manufacturer, Seagate/Maxtor, has added a
user-accessible jumper-switch known as the Force 150, to switch between 150 MB/s and 300 MB/s operation.[27]
Users with a SATA 1.5 Gbit/s motherboard with one of the listed chipsets should either buy an ordinary SATA
1.5 Gbit/s hard disk, buy a SATA 3 Gbit/s hard disk with the user-accessible jumper, or buy a PCI or PCI-E card
to add full SATA 3 Gbit/s capability and compatibility. Western Digital uses a jumper setting called OPT1 Enabled
to force 150 MB/s data transfer speed. OPT1 is used by putting the jumper on pins 5 & 6.[28]
SCSI currently offers transfer rates higher than SATA, but it uses a more complex bus, usually resulting in higher
manufacturing costs. SCSI buses also allow connection of several drives (using multiple channels, 7 or 15 on each
channel), whereas SATA allows one drive per channel, unless using a port multiplier.
SATA 3 Gbit/s offers a maximum bandwidth of 300 MB/s per device compared to SCSI with a maximum of
320 MB/s. Also, SCSI drives provide greater sustained throughput than SATA drives because of disconnect-
reconnect and aggregating performance. SATA devices generally link compatibly to SAS enclosures and adapters,
while SCSI devices cannot be directly connected to a SATA bus.
SCSI, SAS and fibre-channel (FC) drives are typically more expensive so they are traditionally used in servers and
disk arrays where the added cost is justifiable. Inexpensive ATA and SATA drives evolved in the home-computer
market, hence there is a view that they are less reliable. As those two worlds overlapped, the subject of reliability
became somewhat controversial. Note that, generally, the failure rate of a disk drive is related to the quality of its
heads, platters and supporting manufacturing processes, not to its interface.
Unlike PATA, both SATA and eSATA support hot-swapping by design. However, this feature requires proper
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support at the host, device (drive), and operating-system level. In general, all SATA devices (drives) support hot-
swapping (due to the requirements on the device-side), but requisite support is less common on SATA host
adapters.[1]
SCSI-3 devices with SCA-2 connectors are designed for hot-swapping. Many server and RAID systems provide
hardware support for transparent hot-swapping. The designers of the SCSI standard prior to SCA-2 connectors
did not target hot-swapping, but, in practice, most RAID implementations support hot-swapping of hard disks.
See also
Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI)
AT Attachment (ATA)
FATA
Native Command Queuing (NCQ)
TRIM (SSD command)
Compare SATA Bandwidth
Compare eSATA Bandwidth
List of device bandwidths
List of computer standards
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External links
Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO) (http://www.sata-io.org/)
EETimes Serial ATA and the evolution in data storage technology, Mohamed A. Salem
(http://www.edadesignline.com/howto/207402359)
"SATA-1" specification, as a zipped pdf; Serial ATA: High Speed Serialized AT Attachment, Revision 1.0a,
7-January-2003 (http://www.sata-io.org/documents/serialata10a.zip) .
Errata and Engineering Change Notices to above "SATA-1" specification, as a zip of pdfs
(http://web.archive.org/web/20070928100150/http://www.sata-io.org/docs/10a_ECN.zip)
Dispelling the Confusion: SATA II does not mean 3 Gbit/s (https://sata-
io.org/developers/naming_guidelines.asp)
SATA-IO White Paper - External SATA (eSATA) (http://www.sata-
io.org/documents/External%20SATA%20WP%2011-09.pdf) PDF (502 kiB)
SATA motherboard connector pinout (http://pinouts.ru/HD/serialATA_pinout.shtml)
AHCI/RAID Intel Matrix Storage Technology: Unattended installation instructions under Windows XP
(http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/imst/sb/CS-020825.htm)
Intel Matrix Storage Manager: How do I install an operating system on single serial ATA hard drive?
(http://support.intel.com/support/chipsets/imsm/sb/CS-021736.htm)
Serial ATA Connector Schematic and Pinout
(http://www.allpinouts.org/index.php/Serial_ATA_(SATA,_Serial_Advanced_Technology_Attachment))
Serial ATA server and storage use cases (http://www.serialata.org/documents/SATA_illus_guide_final.pdf)
How to Install and Troubleshoot SATA Hard Drives (http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-
US&name=install-troubleshoot-sata-non-
mac&vgnextoid=2b089d2c3c90e010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD)
Serial ATA and the 7 Deadly Sins of Parallel ATA (http://www.lostcircuits.com/mambo//index.php?
option=com_content&task=view&id=50&Itemid=46&limit=1&limitstart=0)
Everything You Need to Know About Serial ATA (http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/27)
Straightforward diagram comparing SATA and ATA/IDE hard drive interfaces
(http://www.laptopparts101.com/hard-drive/)
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