SATA Making Inroads Over PATA In Hard-Drive Arena

Joni Clark, product marketing manager at Seagate Technology and marketing chairperson for the Serial ATA International Organization, a nonprofit industry group developing SATA specifications, said 2006 will see a series of changes and additions as the technology continues to mature.

The cross-over from parallel ATA (PATA) to SATA technology in the hard-drive industry is moving quickly. Clark estimated that by year&'s end, 80 percent of all 3.5-inch ATA hard drives will be SATA vs. 20 percent PATA, with the latter all but disappearing in 2007.

The only thing keeping PATA drives going is the slight cost benefit, a couple of dollars per drive, compared with SATA, Clark said. “PATA is still used for cost-sensitive platforms,” she said. “If a motherboard supplier still offers PATA support, someone will add a PATA hard drive.”

The SATA-IO is working on specifications for two new connectors, Clark said. Specifications for a slim-line connector that allows easy connection to enclosures with hot-swap drive bays was recently completed and is ready to use. And a specification for 1.8-inch hard-drive connectors for use in notebooks and small form-factor PCs is being finalized.

The organization this month implemented a new Interoperability Program, which is an ongoing workshop for vendors in conjunction with quarterly plugfests aimed at ensuring SATA-based hard drives, CD and DVD drives, and adapter cards from multiple vendors work with each other, Clark said. “If the vendors pass the interoperability test, they can put a logo on their sites saying so,” she said. “This ensures their products match other products out there in terms of performance and interoperability.”

Performance is also an issue with SATA-IO as vendors continue to transition their products from the original 1.5-Gbps interface to the more current 3.0-Gbps interface. Seagate, for example, is in the process of end-of-lifing its 1.5-Gbps SATA hard drives, and those vendors who have not started the transition will do so soon, Clark said.

Todd Swank, director of marketing at Northern Computer Technologies, a system builder in Burnsville, Minn., said most but not all VAR customers are ordering more SATA drives than PATA because prices for the two are almost identical and motherboard makers have added SATA to almost all their boards. “Some customers are conservative with their platforms, so we have to move them kicking and screaming,” Swank said.