SATA vs PATA Hard Drive

SATA is the serial version of the ATA, which the been a standard for more than two decades.  SATA  disk drives have significantly higher speeds transferring data at each direction at 1.5 Gbps.  SATA also provide a point to point channel between the motherboard and disk drive rather that the master/slave architecture in the parallel technology.  SATA drives use a shielded cable only up a meter length, unlike the limited 18” long for PATA cables.  SATA cables and its connectors are relatively smaller and take a lot of less space than their PATA counterpart, which is relatively bulkier.  SATA and PATA hard drives are completely not compatible and they can not be interconnected.

SATA devices require only less power and PATA.  And unlike PATA disk, SATA drives are hot-swappable (depending on the software), which means that the devices can be added or removed while the computer is powered on.  SATA disk also have higher transfer rate and very compatible on most software.


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