Serial ATA (SATA)
A serial bus interface and protocol family for attaching HDDs and SSDs, widely used in PCs and servers.
Serial ATA replaces parallel ATA’s wide ribbon with a point-to-point serial link between host and device, carrying ATA command sets over thinner cables with hot-plug-capable connectors in common consumer and entry-server use. Generations progressed through 1.5, 3.0, and 6.0 Gbit/s signaling; 6 Gbit/s remains the practical ceiling for most SATA HDDs and SATA SSDs. Topology is one device per host port (port multipliers exist but are uncommon in modern PCs). AHCI is the usual host controller interface for SATA in software. SATA still ships widely on 3.5-inch HDDs and 2.5-inch/M.2 SATA SSDs, while high-performance flash has largely moved to NVMe/PCIe.
Relations
- related
- pata, ssd, hdd, consumer-ssd, trim
- supersedes
- pata
Limitations
- Throughput ceiling below modern PCIe/NVMe for high-performance SSDs.