AMD and Seagate discuss the new 6Gbps SATA Standard
by Gary Key on March 9, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Gary's First Looks
AMD and Seagate are teaming up today in New Orleans to demonstrate the next-generation Serial ATA specification. The new specification, SATA 6Gbps, will offer twice the disk-to-host bandwidth of the existing 3Gbps Serial ATA standard. Besides the improvement in bandwidth, SATA 6Gbps offers full backwards compatibility with the earlier 3Gbps and 1.5Gbps standards, including the same cable and connector specifications.
AMD and Seagate have worked extensively on fine-tuning data streaming characteristics and users should expect to see significant improvements in this area over current 3Gbps NCQ implementations with the new drives. In addition, the new power management scheme allows the platform to instantaneously power on and off the 6Gbps SATA interface, unlike the always-on power state in current SATA systems.
Current Serial ATA hard drives on the market have average transfer rates that peak around 120MB/s, but read transfers out of the drive buffer (cache) are already hitting 288MB/s. Current caches are at 32MB with a move to 64MB shortly that will place further pressure on the current standard. In fact, the drive (modified 7200.12 design) that Seagate will demonstrate today has read transfers out of the driver buffer hitting 589MB/s.
However, the big winner initially with the new 6Gbps standard will be flash-based drives. We already have SSD drives like the Intel X25-E hitting sustained read and write rates over 200MB/s with new drive designs coming late this year that will probably saturate the current 3Gbps interface. The first customers that Seagate and AMD plan to address with this new technology are enthusiasts, low-end server markets, and users who stream high definition videos or do intensive graphics multimedia work.
Seagate and AMD were adamant that today’s technology demonstration is not an official product launch. That will come later this year when AMD formally announces their next generation chipset featuring full support for the 6Gbps standard. Both companies told us that 6Gbps SATA products might arrive before the end of 2009 but nothing is officially in the pipeline as of now.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
46 Comments
View All Comments
epobirs - Saturday, March 14, 2009 - link
And where does SuperFetch obtain that data? From the drive(s), of course. So drive performance makes a difference in how fast the system can reach its best operational state.So long as the performance isn't greater than the other components can work with, better performance is always a win. Could be a big win, could be a small win but the improvements add up. A poster above was complaining about a situation where it would only be a 1% improvement but failed to consider how those little slices of time add up across millions of operations while using a computer. If a new machine costs no more or is lower priced than the equivalent from a year earlier but has small incremental improvements throughout, the consumer is benefiting nicely. since most non-enthusiasts go a few years between new machines, the difference si a much more appreciable.
UNHchabo - Monday, March 9, 2009 - link
The main difference would be the caching algorithms. Hard drives use a different caching algorithm than Windows, Linux, or OSX, so the data that's in the HDD cache won't be in RAM or the filesystem cache.Then when the CPU wants data, it checks its internal cache first, then checks RAM, then checks the disk. If the disk has it in cache, then it'll be passed up. If not, then it has to fetch the data off the platters. More disk cache necessarily means fewer cache misses, which leads to greater speed. The only way that you could fully supplant disk cache with RAM is if you set up a RAM disk large enough to contain your entire file system.
davepermen - Monday, March 9, 2009 - link
Why not 4x as s-ata2? why not 8x? why not arbitary?why can't they just let both ends diskuss how fast they are and fit the fastest they can together?
now i can have my ssd up to 300MB/s, next year up to 600MB/s. what if i'd like to have 1GB/s? do i have to wait for s-ata4? and then s-ata5?
why don't they create a standard that actually scales?
MadMan007 - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
Because moderate incremental increases are more profitable.garydale - Monday, March 9, 2009 - link
The problem is, in part, that technology can only advance so fast. If the SATA interface was spec'd at 1G B/s then controllers and disk electronics would have to handle that speed to match the spec. That could add to the price, if it was even doable a few years ago.SCSI has always been the faster technology but it isn't as widely used because of the added cost.
So long as we can maintain backward compatibility, there isn't a huge issue with updating the standards as technology progresses. As the article and several others have commented, the issue isn't being driven by the hard drives so much as by the more recent SSD technology. As SSD becomes mainstream, the need to unblock its potential creates the consumer demand for a faster interface that doesn't require jumping through hoops to make it bootable.
So even when the new SATA standard becomes popular, I'm not going to throw out my old hard drives. However, I might invest in a new drive for the system and caching when I upgrade my processor & mainboard next time.
v413 - Monday, March 9, 2009 - link
I guess they are approaching physical limitations for signaling. SATA3 runs with 6Gbps speed using the old SATA cables. Raising the speed will require either limiting the possible length of the SATA cables (longer cables = more noise, signal deteriorates and hence more errors) or using different cables - most probably optical cables. So 6gbps is probably the limit for the easiest and backward compatible solution for the time being.Starcub - Monday, March 9, 2009 - link
It's a shame they are using the same old cables, at least on the external side. Every eSATA cable I have ever used performs intermittently at the slightest bump. They really need to implement a locking connector design.DeesTroy - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
None of my eSATA cables worked well if at all until I took an exacto knife to the connector and removed some excess material. Once I removed a little of the fattest part of the plug, the cables could finally be inserted fully, allowing a reliable eSATA connection. It's hard to blame the cables though as the fault could also lie with my eSATA to PCI-Express adapter and its back plate getting in the way.Spivonious - Monday, March 9, 2009 - link
The current SATA spec has a theoretical max of 375MB/s. With even the fastest drives today barely breaking 250MB/s and then only under heavily cached reads, what is the need for upping the limit to 750MB/s?Sabresiberian - Tuesday, March 31, 2009 - link
Comments like this are always on the goofy side, in my opinion. What do we need for any improvement in the computer world? What do we even need for computers, we can do all of the things a computer does without one, anyway.The fact is better, faster technology improves our lives in terms of what we want to get out of our time, well, alive. EVERY ADVANCE IN TECHNOLOGY GOES TO IMPROVING THE LIVES OF ALL OF US! How can you not understand this? Every advancement allows for further development in the rest of the industry, and all related industries - related meaning anyone who has use for a computer. Changes like this don't just effect load times for World of Warcraft players and benchmarkers, but allow the whole industry to move forward. Faster drives WILL be built, and not understanding the picture in at least that one, small area is paramount to not thinking at all. I find it ludicrous to think that anyone taking the time to read any article at Anandtech doesn't have the capacity to do so, yet comments like these keep getting made.