|
|
 |
|
|
Pages: 1
Serial ATA
(Click here to view the original thread with full colors/images)
Posted by: Tweaker
Are you tired of fighting with those big bulky grey ribbon cables trying to get them tucked out of the way to minimize clutter and maximize air flow? Well, that won't be a problem in another 2 years.
The Serial ATA Working Group has released a finilized Serial ATA 1.0 spec that has been received by the industry with much applause. Add-on cards to support Serial ATA are expected as soon as the first quarter of 2002, with onboard motherboard support to follow shortly depending on how consumers react to the new technology and vendor support. The new technology also supports older devices via an adapter, and an adapter will also allow the connection of new Serial ATA devices to the older Parallel ATA connectors you have on your motherboard now.
The newest ATA spec that is just catching on now, ATA-133, runs at of course 133 MBit per second, Serial ATA ver. 1.0 allows for 150 MBit per second, speeds will be doubled by 2005 to 300Mbit per second, and again later to 600Mbit per second.
The technology also eliminates master/slave configuration as each device will be directly attached to the controller.
As for software support, at first only 4 devices will be supported to make sure that software doesn't have any problems. After a while (probably when onboard support becomes mainstream) an unknown number of devices will be supported, as the technology itself allows for a seemingly unlimited number of devices.
Also, I haven't been able to find this anywhere, but from the looks of it this technology will also connect floppy drives, so no more silly split end floppy cables.
Heres a little comparison graphic for you.
Image courtesy of Maxtor.
Posted by: Null Actor
Hmmm... non-standard power cable. That doesn't bode well.
Posted by: Sarc
You got that right Nova Z.
I would like one, just one good reason why they decided to change something that, probably has no need to be messed with.
There's that and I also just bought a shiny new 431W Enermax P.S.
Great, just another thing to upgrade when I want a little more performance. 
|
|
|
|
|
