The SATA 1.0 interface made its debut in 2003. It was developed by a consortium consisting of Intel, Dell, and storage distributors like Seagate and Maxtor. It rapidly superior to SATA III in 2009, however there by no means was a SATA IV. There was simply nibbling across the edges with incremental updates as momentum and emphasis shifted to PCI Categorical and NVMe.
So is there any life available within the venerable SATA interface? Surprisingly, sure, say the analysts. “At a excessive degree, sure, SATA for client is just about a lifeless finish, though if you happen to’re storing TB of pictures and movies, it’s nonetheless the least costly possibility,” mentioned Bob O’Donnell, president and chief analyst with TECHnalysis Research.
Equally for enterprise, for enormous storage calls for, the 20 and 30 TB SATA drives from firms like Seagate and WD are apparently nonetheless in large use in cloud knowledge facilities for issues like chilly storage. “Actually, each of these firms are seeing recording revenues primarily based, partly, on the demand for these large, high-capacity low-cost drives,” he mentioned.
“SATA doesn’t make a lot sense anymore. It underperforms NVMe considerably,” said Rob Enderle, principal analyst with The Enderle Group. “It actually doesn’t make a lot sense to proceed make it given Samsung allegedly makes three to 4 instances extra margin on NVMe.”
And like O’Donnell, Enderle sees continued life for SATA-based high-capacity laborious drives. “There’ll possible be legacy makers doing SATA for a while. IT doesn’t flip expertise rapidly and SATA drives do put on out, so there’ll possible be these producing legacy SATA merchandise for a while,” he mentioned.
