SerialATA Drives

[GT98]

When are these guys going to start hitting the market?

[Helevitia]

I think I remember reading early 2003 somewhere.

Dave

[isochar]

The storagereview board seems to be under the impression that they will arrive Q4 this year with some massive sizes. (>160gb)

[Gurm]

Some massive, inefficient sizes?

- Gurm

[Technoid]

I hope that the claims about backwars forwards compability comes true...

[Dr Mordrid]

Backwards compatability will be by way of a dongle. The SATA connector is rather USB like with two signal wires & two power wires. The dongle expands it out to be able to use a "normal" IDE cable. Also start looking for SATA RAID's. Several of the usual players are going to make them.

Terabyte RAID's will be pretty normal for those editing in HDTV, and those devices will be coming sooner than later. This will be to match a new generation of digital cams with HDTV capability (1920x1080) that are also in the works.

Dr. Mordrid

[az]

Can anyone explain to me why serial is the way to go?
I mean, serial PCI (PCI Express it's now called, formerly 3GIO or Arapahoe) will deliver 8GB/sec over 32 lines - isn't this a bit parallel again? Won't we, sooner or later, use parallel serial devices?

And how do I have to imagine a "serial" connection anyway? Isn't it kind of the same as a faster-clocked parallel connection over just one line? (OK, wouldn't be much parallelity left then *g)

AZ

[Wombat]

Things tend to alternate between serial and parallel as technology progresses. Each handles a different side of the bandwidth problem. You can usually see a trend:
-somebody invents a technology that improves transfer over a wire
-this technology is usually difficult to get right in more than limited quantities and/or inherently expensive, so you can only afford a few lines of communication
-the technology becomes cheaper over time, and more bandwidth is added by adding more lines
-wash, rinse, repeat.

Serial is the way for HDs to go because they've pushed the current bus interface pretty far. Eventually they'll widen the bus, it just happens.

Another weird one is how media keeps alternating between the disc-thingy and the tape-thingy.

[az]

So "serial" doesn't really mean some kind of technology, such as bursting say 8 bits per clock cycle, but really just means "fast, and over one wire", while parallel just means.. parallel wires ? Why's everybody making such a fuss about it then?

About the disc and tapes though: I think for random access the disc is simply the better approach, access-time-wise; for storing large portions of data tape is cheaper, and more space-effective. As for transfer speed, I don't know if there are systematical advantages between the two, and for data safety oveer time I think magnetic is a bit dangerous, and tapes tend to "glue" or stretch or become unflexible (though those hurdles might have been overcome, but aren't present with discs, naturally). In the end, we'll move to the cube, I think

AZ

[Wombat]

Serial just means that data can be considered to arrive one tidbit at a time. Parallel means that you have to watch a bunch of data at the same time.

Compare one fast turnstyle that lets people through very quickly to having 8 turnstyles, but you have to make sure that people exit each of these turnstyles at the same time. The balance shifts back and forth as to which is faster, as technology changes.

[az]

OK, thanks

That's what I thought but I thought "this can't be all that it's really about" (of course I know there's more to data transfer than I might think there is... )

AZ

[Marshmallowman]

and the thinner drive cables is something I am defintely looking forward to

[Helevitia]

AFAIK the serial ATA cables are actually fiber cables which means you are sending light between the HDD and the board. So the light pulses would definitely help improve speed.

[Technoid]

My only concern is to be able to use my IDE interfased HDD's and ATAPI devices

[The PIT]

I wonder if they'll work on a Via chipset