SATA (Serial ATA) is the newest interface for hard disks. The old PATA (Parallel ATA) hard drives used the thin ribbon connectors and only got up to around 133 MHz (300 MBps, I believe?). SATA has transfer rates up to 5 GB/s, depending on the interface revision, and generally controls internal computer devices. However, SATA connectors are increasingly common for external hard disks, as it is plug-and-play or “hot swap” depending on the industry.
They were using SATA in the example, since hard disks will usually be the best indicators for read/write performance. External USB disks have been clunky and really only good for occasional archiving. FireWire was going to revolutionize that segment, but it never took off. USB 3.0 should be able to keep up with the newest SATA disks without issue.
Now, that's kinda what I thought (I'm not really a hardware guy.) Thanks for this explanation. I get it now. Wikipedia made my head hurt. ;0)
>xternal USB disks have been clunky and really only good for occasional archiving. FireWire was going to revolutionize that segment, but it never took off.
I use Firewire for archiving, I like it a lot. It’s also nice that it doesn’t bog my systems down when I am doing so too, but that’s the synergistic effect of having SCSI hard-drives for my working-machine.
(If the CPU doesn’t NEED to be involved, why MAKE it be involved?)