SATA Storage Technology

The SATA (Serial ATA) interface is intended to expand and eventually replace the parallel ATA interface that has been the standard connection for hard drives and CD-ROM/DVD drives in Personal Computers for nearly twenty years. SATA, a high-speed serial version of ATA, is designed to maintain compatibility with software written for the standard ATA implementation, thus easing the transition to SATA. New advances in SATA provide new capabilities such as Native Command Queuing that improve overall drive performance and greater reliability. In addition, the latest version of SATA (called SATA II) adds new features such as higher transfer rates, Port Selectors, Port Multipliers, and enclosure services, making it easier to implement low cost, high capacity, storage subsystems for server implementations. This book provides essential information for Systems Engineers, System Validation Engineers, Hardware Designers, and Software Developers. o Serial ATA Storage Technology provides ATA background information necessary to understand the Serial ATA implementation. This book provides detailed information regarding the serial protocol, commands, and electrical interface. A tutorial approach is taken to facilitate thorough understanding, using numerous illustrations, tables and examples. The text is also designed to provide easy to access valuable reference information