"Stephan Grossklass" wrote in message
...
jime schrieb:

When I look up the specs on a ATA150 and a SATA 150 the data transfer
rate
is listed the same. What is the advantage of SATA?

You can indeed buy the same drives as either PATA and SATA versions, and
performance differences will be very small. What SATA would bring you is
the longer and thinner cables, OTOH 1st generation SATA connectors can
be very loose and cause problems that way (so-called c.r.a.p), which
should be fixed in 2nd-gen connectors (no idea whether these are
actually already in use). One compelling reason to upgrade to SATA
certainly are the WD Raptors, which are only available with SATA
interface.

Stephan

Some of the newer SATA drives already on the market also have Command
Queuing, which is similar to a feature on high-end SCSI drives. Besides the
WD Raptor, some Maxtor and Seagate drives have it. This allows multiple I/O
requests to queue up and be processed asynchronously. SATA II, which
provides up to 300 mbps is just around the corner, but will not provide much
transfer speed advantage for 7200 rpm drives under typical use. Some
motherboards already support SATA II (including my A8N-E).

The longer and thinner SATA cables are important as system builders try to
keep ever more powerful computers cool and quiet. They have less restrictive
airflow through case compared to flat ribbon cables.