Only two days ago we reported about the first demonstration of a Serial ATA device, today there is more news from the Serial ATA front, Serial ATA II is on it's way. Serial ATA should improve the current Parallel ATA interface. The transfer rates should be faster, and the installation of devices using the interface should be easier. (Easier cables, no slave/master jumpers)
For those who don't know, ATA and ATAPI are the real names for the interface that is frequently called IDE and EIDE and it's what used to connect most hard drives, CD-ROM/DVD-ROM players and CD-RW drives. You could say it is the opposite of the more expensive SCSI interface.
Improvments of Serial ATA II: |
While the Serial ATA 1.0 specification already ensures performance headroom for years to come, the Serial ATA II specification enhances Serial ATA with features that add data-handling intelligence to provide additional value for entry-level server, networked storage and high-end PC markets. These features are expected to further increase the momentum of Serial ATA in these targeted applications and to help accelerate the industry transition from Parallel ATA to Serial ATA.
Native Command Queuing is perhaps the most anticipated feature of the new specification. It enables a hard drive to take multiple requests for data from the processor and rearrange the order of those requests to maximize throughput. Serial ATA II hard drives will be able to queue and execute requests without any assistance from a system's CPU or motherboard chipset.
Companies supporting the interface are e.g MediaTek, Philips, Samsung, Toshiba, Maxtor, Seagate, Western Digital, Adaptec, IBM, Intel, AMD etc. So you are sure you will hear more from this !
More information can be found in the press release here and if you would like more information then feel free to visit our General Hardware Forum!
Source: Yahoo.com
