SATA 3.0 Specifications Finalized and Officially Released to Public

Not long after USB 3.0 Specifications being finalized and available to developers, now the SATA (Serial ATA International Organization) consortium has released SATA revision 3.0 specification that is claimed to be doubling the data transmission rate of existing SATA II interface. While it seems to be sufficient for conventional hard disk drive with legacy existing SATA specifications, but this is no longer true with more and more high performance SSDs (Solid State Devices) being released to market.

As compared to SATA II specification that stays at 3Gbps, the SATA 3.0 can double up the rate up to 6Gbps theoretical rate that reduce memory data transfer bottleneck and eventually boost up the overall system performance. Some other enhancements include an isochronous transfer mode which utilizes NCQ (Native Command Queuing) that can prioritize data transmission for multimedia applications. On top of this, there is a pair of new connectors being designed dedicated for 1.8-inch hard disk drive as well as a tiny 7mm optical disk drives suitable for ultra thin notebooks.

As expected, the SATA 3.0 will be backward compatible with earlier versions so that it makes more sense for existing platform builders to upgrade it while still able to use back existing peripherals. SATA-IO consortium will be showcasing the new revision specifications during the Computex event held in Taipei early next month.