Chicago (IL) – SATA 3.0 has made its first appearance at IDF, as peripherals are slowly but surely approaching the limits of SATA or SATA-II. The latest SSDs are hitting data transfer rates of 250 MB/s, close the theoretical maximum of 300 MB/s of SATA-II.

Visitors at this year’s Fall IDF were able to see the initial SATA 3.0 specification, which will expand the bandwidth of the interface standard from 3 GB/s (300 MB/s) to 6 Gb/s (600 MB/s). It is interesting to note that the SATA 3.0 spec equals the bandwidth offered by the original SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) specification. By doubling the speed from 2.0 and 3.0, the standards body is hoping that the bandwidth of SATA 3.0 spec will be sufficient for the next couple of years.

We are not so sure. Given the speed increase of SSDs over the past 12 months, we would suspect that 6 Gb/s could last for 12 months, especially if we consider the fact that SATA 3.0 devices are in development already. And companies such as Fusion-IO offer products hitting 2GB/s speeds, which means that even 600 MB/s is not enough.

damn...

Aug 21, 2008 14:48     

damn
salgado report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -5

SATA for HDD

Aug 21, 2008 21:14     

That is why SATA 3.0 should only be a regroup of all previous SATA standard such as multi devices in single port. Small Motherbroad could then do with only 2 SATA 3.0 port which would be enough to fit up to 4 - 8 HDD. As SSD goes faster it really should use the PCI-Express instead. PCI-Express 2.0 2x Slot should give 512MB/s, fast enough for most SSD. Until PCI-Express 3.0 comes along with 2x Port for 1GB/s. Since we couldn't use 4x Port as it will be too big.

Ed report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -2

Re: SATA for HDD

Aug 21, 2008 22:54     

No no no. That's exactly NOT what we want from SATA. One of the single biggest benefits of SATA, is that there is no channel sharing. Each one gets it's own line. NO SHARING! Don't just see the different GB/s and assume they are interchangeable. PCI-E reports to the northbridge/cpu. SATA reports to the southbridge. You can't just use one for the other.
Eddy report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +5

600MB/sec will be more than enough for consumer applications....

Aug 21, 2008 23:35     

"We are not so sure. Given the speed increase of SSDs over the past 12 months, we would suspect that 6 Gb/s could last for 12 months" Well yeah, there may be specialized SSD/RAID devices that can reach over this limit, but they sure as hell won't be used in average consumer applications. SATA is not intended for ultra-highend professional drive applications, hence the reason SAS exists. SAS link speeds will no doubt be updated past 300MB/sec as well, but IIRC, SAS can already use link aggregation in specialized circumstances to boost throughput past 300MBps.

l report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

Re: Eddy

Aug 22, 2008 00:08     

PCI-express lanes are serial, not parallel - the old PCI interface was parallel. Chipset makers could easily make a SATA controller connected by PCI-express (and IIRC, some already do). What the SATA controller is connected to is a choice made by the motherboard manufacturer or the chipset maker. As an example, nVidia has some chipsets that eschew a southbridge altogether, with the SATA controller built into the northbridge. Just because something is usually done one way doesn't mean that it is the only way to do it. Connecting flash drives via PCI-express would be a completely valid route, though I would prefer an alternative to plugging them into the MB expansion slots.

Andrew report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

So when...

Aug 22, 2008 05:38     

When will this sata 3.0 be available to consumers? I mean if it takes 6 months or more to get this new interface port to motherboards and peripherals I heavily doubt it will be enough for even that 12 months because speeds are rising already as we speak about this new faster sata that will be ours...someday.
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