SATA 3.0 - ratified!

20th August 2008

An International Working Group on the development of standard Serial ATA interface has formally ratified the specification of the physical layer SATA 3.0 with support of data transfer rates of up to 6 Gbit/sec.
A full version of the standard SATA 3.0 is planned to be released before the end of this year. The organization called SATA-IO (Serial ATA International Organization) stated that the standard SATA 3.0 is a response to calls of producers to increase capacity of one of the most popular interfaces for connecting long-term data storage devices, including hard drives, optical media and SSD (Solid-State Drive). In particular, SSD manufacturers plan to achieve a speed of more than 3 Gb/s, a maximum speed for the current standard SATA, already in the next generation of its products.
Specifications of the standard Serial ATA 3.0 allow applying for devices connection the same cables and connectors, that are used in current versions, although some OEM-manufacturers plan to make some changes in design of connectors to improve the speed of data transmission.
Restriction on the length of connections no more than 1-meter has remained, however.
In addition to the physical parameters of data transmission, SATA 3.0 contains a set of useful extensions in the commands set.