The Difference Between SATA I, SATA II And SATA III - Simply Explained

Table of contents:

The Difference Between SATA I, SATA II And SATA III - Simply Explained
The Difference Between SATA I, SATA II And SATA III - Simply Explained

Video: The Difference Between SATA I, SATA II And SATA III - Simply Explained

Video: The Difference Between SATA I, SATA II And SATA III - Simply Explained
Video: How to check cable SATA version - SATA 1, 2 or 3? - Serial ATA 3gb/s vs 6 Gb/s? 2023, October
Anonim

The abbreviation " SATA " stands for " S erial A dvanced T echnology A ttachment" (extended serial technology connection). SATA is a technique for transferring data from SSDs and hard drives to certain mainboard components and vice versa. In the past, there were parallel interfaces, which were later converted to serial. Serial means that data is transmitted bit by bit in succession.

Mainboard connections explained

What is the difference between SATA I, SATA II and SATA III?

The various SATA levels indicate the maximum speed with which the data can be transferred. The higher the level, the faster data in the computer is transferred to SSDs or hard drives.

SATA I SATA II SATA III
Year of launch 2002 2005 2009
Max. speed 1.5 Gbit / s 3 Gbit / s 6 Gbit / s
Max. Bandwidth throughput 150 MB / s 300 MB / s 600 MB / s
Designations
  • SATA 1.5 Gbit / s
  • SATA I
  • SATA-150
  • SATA 3 Gbit / s
  • SATA II
  • SATA-300
  • SATA 6 Gbit / s
  • SATA III
  • SATA-600

For comparison, a hard disk transfers in theory a maximum of 120 MB / s, more practically about 80 MB / s. So that's about half the specified SATA-I speed. This does not change if you operate the hard drive with the SATA I, SATA II or SATA III interface. An old-fashioned hard drive cannot transfer data faster for technical reasons. For this reason, SSDs were invented that can fully exploit the SATA interface.

Image
Image

Start photo gallery (12 photos)

How fast is an SSD on SATA I, II and III?

The following guidelines apply to sequential read and write speeds. So large files are written or read in one piece:

  • With SATA III, an SSD achieves around 500 MB / s in reading and writing in practice.
  • With SATA II, an SSD achieves around 280 MB / s in reading and writing in practice.
  • With SATA I, an SSD achieves around 120 MB / s in reading and writing in practice.

If no other components in the computer slow down the speed, even an SSD with SATA I is faster than a hard drive (on SATA III, II or I). The following YouTube video of the channel "T Driver" shows the difference between an SSD and a hard drive with SATA I when booting Windows:

An SSD with SATA I is always worthwhile compared to a conventional hard drive if speed is important. Depending on the computer system, it can happen that you don't notice a big difference between an SSD with SATA I and a hard drive. From SATA II, however, you notice a significant increase in speed.

As a large data archive, hard drives are still one of the best storage media, since their prices are cheaper per gigabyte and data from defective hard drives can be better recovered than data from defective SSDs.

This is a SATA cable that transfers the data between the SSD / hard drive and mainboard. Image: Michael Schwarzenberger (Pixabay)
This is a SATA cable that transfers the data between the SSD / hard drive and mainboard. Image: Michael Schwarzenberger (Pixabay)

And what is "SATA Express"?

"SATA Express " was introduced in 2013 and is referred to as the SATA 3.2 interface, making it even faster than SATA 3 / SATA III. "SATA Express" transfers at 8 Gbit / s per PCI Express lane (PCIe lane). A maximum of 2 PCIe 3.0 lanes are supported, resulting in a maximum transmission speed of 16 Gbit / s.

Since the M.2 interface even supports up to 4 PCIe lanes and today's drives require higher bandwidths for maximum performance, M.2 has become already increasingly established in modern desktop PCs and laptops.

Robert Schanze
Robert Schanze

Is the article helpful?

Yes No Comment

Your life is GIGA.

?

Help us to improve and please tell us:

Why is the article not helpful for you?

The information is out of date I have not received enough information The information is incorrect I disagree Other Send answer

Thank you, your GIGA team

?

Thank you

Your opinion is important to us. Also like to discuss with us in the comments.

Window will close automatically in 6 seconds

Close Window

Recommended: