SATA 3.0 Specification Released

Author Gordon Kelly
Published 28th May 2009
SATA 3.0 Specification Released
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Let's see what SSD manufacturers can do with this...

Standards consortium and overlord the Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO) has released the 'Serial ATA Revision 3.0' specification - or SATA wow-that's-fast 3.0 to you and I.

The key aspect to the new standard is a doubling of the SATA II theoretical maximum from three gigabits per second (3Gb/s) to 6Gb/s (almost 600MB/s) along with enhancements to support multimedia applications.

"As speed becomes critical to today's storage, the SATA Revision 3.0 specification doubles the maximum transfer speed enabled by technology, paving the way for a new generation of faster SATA products," said SATA-IO president Knut Grimsrud. "SATA-IO members will be able to design for their customers products with the speed they crave, without compromising the quality and performance they've come to expect from SATA technology."


Like its forebears SATA 3.0 (no Roman numerals this time around) will be completely backwards compatible with SATA and SATA II and "maintains the low cost and low power for which the popular storage interface is acclaimed".

Aside from the speed boost we'll also see:

  • A new Native Command Queuing (NCQ) streaming command to enable isochronous data transfers for bandwidth-hungry audio and video applications
  • An NCQ Management feature that helps optimize performance by enabling host processing and management of outstanding NCQ commands
  • Improved power management capabilities
  • A small Low Insertion Force (LIF) connector for more compact 1.8-inch storage devices
  • A connector designed to accommodate 7mm optical disk drives for thinner and lighter notebooks
  • Alignment with the INCITS ATA8-ACS standard
A Seagate SATA 3.0 demonstration was run in March using a pre-approved draft of the specification, so manufacturers are all over this like Iniesta on the Man U back four (too soon?). AMD has also said its 750 chipset can be upgraded to handle the new standard.

SSD manufacturers now please feel free to go nuts, like Z-Drive and ioDrive Duo nuts...

Link:
Press Release via MarketWatch

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comment Simon Twine said on 28th May 2009

it is NEVER too soon for a joke about Man U. Well played, sir.

comment ilovethemonkeyhead said on 28th May 2009

i want the first motherboard that gets released with support for usb 3 and sata 3. to the power of 3!!!

comment austin316gb said on 28th May 2009

"so manufacturers are all over this like Iniesta on the Man U back four (too soon?)"

No, no. Never too soon!

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