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Serial ATA 1.0 Draft Released

Posted by Hemos on from the getting-closer dept.

Several readers submitted the news from CNET's story regarding the Serial ATA 1.0 Draft Released. Looks like the replacement for IDE is getting closer - a peak transfer rate of 150 MBs per second is nice to have under the hood.

5 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. Re:and supported on Linux :) by Ashran · · Score: 4

    Umm, even Slashdot Authors should read the article before posting a First Post! ;p
    SATA is software compatible to ATA, which means Every OS that supports ATA has allready SATA support :p

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  2. Oh, for fucks sake ... WAKE UP!! by Vryl · · Score: 5
    Silly editors, you missed the real story. In "The Register", here.

    Exclusive
    Hastening a rapid demise for the free copying of digital media, the next generation of hard disks is likely to come with copyright protection countermeasures built in.

    Technical committees of NCTIS, the ANSI-blessed standards body, have been discussing the incorporation of content protection currently used for removable media into industry-standard ATA drives, using proprietary technology originating from the 4C Entity. They're the people who brought you CSS2: IBM, Toshiba Intel and Matsushita.

  3. hardware geeks and case modders... by complex · · Score: 4

    hardware geeks and case modders rejoice, as serial ata uses a skinny litle cable, much like the audio out cable from your cd-rom to your sound card. makes the case a lot neater (imagine hiding the cables by taping them to the sides of the case!) and increases airflow. check out yummy pictures at http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1174.

    complex

  4. May not be as bad as that, check this out... by Fross · · Score: 4

    Microsoft for one, as stated in the article, is seriously opposed to this. So should be any OS or large application vendor, for the reasons described therein. They do have some big clout. :)

    Not all the HD manufacturers are in this little committee, and I'm sure they'll do whatever will make them more money. If this means going against the committee and either persisting with ATA-100 or making their own version, if there is a market for this product, they will do it.

    Now this is _very_ important - New standards need new chipsets - the interface for ATA is held on the motherboard. Intel is on this committee, sure, but what about AMD? VIA? Now, they wouldn't want to do something differently from Intel, would they? ;) Without a chipset with these new ATA commands in it, the drives are useless. So here's a weak point.

    I'm sure there'll be workarounds built as quickly as DeCSS was. Cables with de-protection dongles built in? Nice one.

    There are more potential problem scenarios for this. If file X is "protected" in this manner, what about X.zip? :) What about downloading stuff off the Net? I'm sure programs will also be used to strip copyright information off a file as well, or some apps will be written to do filecopying by getting around this.

    (this is a tangent from this - the new ATA standard would be a hardware check on the HD, i know, but from the article i gather it would be effectively on request of the file/application)

    In short, I would keep a close eye on it, but I wouldn't worry. If it becomes a reality (as in, a major choice and in stores), tools will be all over Warez sites. Think of the volume of DeCSS out there, now multiply it by the number of Windows users there are - and this would be a hack for something REALLY annoying.

    It'll be tried and will fail - there is no law _requiring_ copyright control on harddrives, or anywhere, so the fight will be on, with people boycotting the new drives and sticking with ATA-100 or SCSI-UW, or hacking them. Until the next standard comes along, which won't have this control on it, and will sell like hotcakes.

    Get our yer mirror sites.

    Fross

  5. Re:How is serial faster than parallel? by Azog · · Score: 4

    Serial is faster than parallel because they can crank the clock speed way, way up on the bus. You can't do that with parallel because you end up having major problems keeping all the data pulses properly synchronized. Also, with more signal cables you need more grounding cables - that's why the Ultra 66 and 100 drives need 80-wire cables to work properly. And even then, the ATA-100 stuff only really goes that fast if everything is just right and the moon is in the right phase (or so I understand.)

    Serial cables are just much simpler electrically, even though the clock speed has to be 16 times higher for the same bandwidth.

    Disclaimer. I am not an electrical engineer. I just read stuff off web sites.
    Torrey Hoffman (Azog)

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    Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
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