SATA, the full name of Serial ATA, which is using the serial ATA interface, due to strong anti-interference, and the length of the data lines require much lower than ATA, support hot swap capabilities, SATA-II interface speed is 375MB / s, the new SATA-III criteria can reach 750MB / s transfer speed. SATA data cable is also much thinner than the ATA, is conducive to the flow of air inside the chassis, finishing wire is also more convenient.
And Parallel ATA compared to the new SATA uses differential signaling system "differential-signal-amplified-system". Such systems can be effective to filter noise from the normal signal, good noise filtering capabilities enable SATA as long as you can use low-voltage operation, and Parallel ATA up compared to the transmission voltage of 5V, SATA as long as 0.5V of peak-to-peak voltage can be operated above the higher speeds. "More correct statement is: peak-to-peak 'differential mode voltage'."
And Parallel ATA drive voltage of 5V compared, 0.5V SATA system of saving electricity, the production cost of its driver IC is also cheaper.
SCSI-English called "Small Computer System Interface", is the same IDE (ATA) completely different interface, IDE interface is the standard interface for a normal PC, and SCSI hard drives are not designed specifically for the interface is a widely used high-speed data transmission technology on minicomputers. SCSI interface has a wide range of applications, multitasking, large bandwidth, CPU occupancy rate, as well as hot-swappable, etc., but the higher price makes it difficult to popularize such as IDE hard drives, SCSI hard drives and therefore are mainly used in high-end servers and high-end workstations.
Through multiple generations of development, from early SCSI-II, to the current Ultra320 SCSI and Fiber-Channel (FC), interface type also varied. SCSI hard drive are widely workstation-class PC and server use, and therefore the use of more advanced technologies such as high-speed disc rotation speed 15000rpm and data transmission when the CPU occupancy rate is low, but the unit price than the same capacity ATA and SATA hard disk is more expensive.
SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) is the next generation of SCSI technology and SATA drives the same, are taking sequential technology for higher transmission speeds, up to 6Gb / s. In addition also improved through the narrow space within the system such as cable.
In addition, since SAS hard disk can be hard to share the same backplane with SATA, SAS and therefore in the same storage system, can be used to replace some of the expensive SATA drives SAS hard drive, saving overall storage costs. But SATA storage system does not connect SAS hard drive.
SAS was developed after the parallel SCSI interface new interface. This interface is designed to improve the performance of storage systems, availability and scalability, and provides compatibility with the SATA hard drive.
FC (Fibre Channel, Fibre Channel interface), owns a hot-swap hard disk interface have sex when using fiber-optic connections, high-speed bandwidth (4Gb / s or 10Gb / s), remote connection and other characteristics; internal transfer rate than ordinary hard drives higher. Restrictions on its high price, high-end servers typically used. Like Fibre Channel and SCSI interfaces are not originally designed and developed for the hard disk interface technology, is designed for network system design, but with the storage system requirements for speed, gradually applied to the hard disk system. FC hard drive is to improve the speed and flexibility of multi-drive storage system was developed, it appears greatly improved communication speed multi-drive systems. The main characteristics of Fibre Channel are: hot-swappable resistance, high bandwidth, remote access, a large number of connections and equipment.
FC hard drive is like the server in such a multi-drive system environments designed to meet the high-end workstations, between servers, mass storage sub-networks, peripherals bidirectional serial data communications systems for high-hubs, switches and connected by point requires the data transmission rate.
FATA is a hybrid hard drive technology, called fiber subsidiary adapter (FATA, Fibre Attached Technology Adapted), this technology is the largest hard drive manufacturer Seagate jointly developed, which can effectively reduce the cost of the hard disk, making it help improve the cost disk arrays.
The greatest advantage of FATA can be mixed in the same disk cabinet with FC hard disk drives and FATA hard drives, the inadequacy of that FC interface is slightly more expensive than SATA interface, and the hard drive vendors basically only Seagate and Hitachi master FC interface technology, limited sources of hard drives - conversely FATA hard drives use is also very simple, the supplier is difficult to mass production - further driving up the cost of the FATA. Moreover, for now, even the use of a hard disk drive FATA EVA products, but also rarely able to see the situation inside a disk cabinet applications simultaneously FC and FATA hard drives.