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Sata cabling



 
 
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  #16  
Old March 21st 09, 10:00 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware
JS
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 6,475
Default Sata cabling

It's was deemed a less expensive solution at the time.

I have PATA 80 wire for ATA 100 and ATA 133 drives
(connected using either round PATA cables or the traditional flat ribbon)
plus SATA I and SATA II drives.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against SATA
but they just don't deliver on the advertized speed.
Plus the connector design of SATA does not give
me confidence in constantly connecting Hard Drives
on my "Test" computers.

--
JS
http://www.pagestart.com


"Gerry" wrote in message
...
JS

If pata is faster than sata why has sata replaced pata?

BTW I have Sata II

--


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


"JS" @ wrote in message ...
Well, in a crude sense think of SATA
as a two lane highway compared to
PATA as an 8 lane highway. If the PATA
cable design was updated to handle higher
transfer rates I would think that PATA could
be at least 4x faster than SATA.

And an updated PATA cable need not be a
giant size ribbon cable either. Just imagine if
your ram memory was serial access instead
of DDR2 or DDR3.

--
JS
http://www.pagestart.com


"Gerry" wrote in message
...
JS

Interesting. Statistically how do data transfer rates compare?

--


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

JS wrote:
Not crazy over the SATA connectors either.
SATA or Serial ATA has another design flaw
in that by nature serial data transfers can never
be as fast as parallel.


"Gerry" wrote in message
...
I have had a disk connection problem which seems to relate to
failing sata cables. The BIOS has failed intermittently to detect
one or both hard drives. The problem was more obvious with the
master drive so I replaced the cable 14 days ago and there was no
further problem until this morning. The problem this morning was the
slave drive so I have replaced the cable for that drive. It has now
been working for a bit over two hour. The problem first became
apparent a month ago when I found the system
would freeze after it had been running some time. Resetting sometimes
worked and sometimes resulted in a failed boot. Eventually the system
would boot but the problem would happen again some hours later or
the next day. Sometimes there have been Event Viewer reports -mainly
ID: 11 referring to the Controller. Often the problem is unreported.
This is probably because the Error is occurring before Event Viewer
starts. From a friend I got these comments.

"In my view, the SATA 'Connector' is an engineering blunder. A
sort-of flat
sleeve slides over a notched part on the edge of the board whereupon
sit some exposed/un-insulated traces. Flat conductors encased within
a plastic bit are slid into contact with them. There is no mechanism
but friction to keep the 'connector' in place. Entirely inadequate.
It is not designed for repeated make/break insertion/removal. If
subjected even to a low number of
such operations (design spec is 50), it will fail. (5 000 for an
eSATA connector). If I have to repeatedly disconnect-connect a drive
during testing, I replace the cable as a matter of routine."

I am interested in knowing whether others have encountered this
problem and how common place it is?

TIA


--


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~








Ads
  #17  
Old March 21st 09, 10:20 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware
Gerry
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 9,437
Default Sata cabling

Paul

This is the motherboard
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/...ProductID=1926


--


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Paul wrote:
Gerry wrote:
Paul

The computer is a desktop with a Gigabyte 915/910 Series
motherboard. The two drives are a Seagate and a Maxtor. The cable
connectors do not match any illustrated in your links. Both ends are
identical and push vertically down onto the motherboard. On one side
of each end of the cable is a spring loaded metal plate but I would
not say it locks. The cable stays in place.


The connectors on this example, don't seem to have a shroud around
the body. Just the wafer and some guides. My motherboard has ones
like this. My cables are the part that are providing the retention,
as the connector on the motherboard is not helping.

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/FileList/...raphic_big.jpg

This is a closeup. This one doesn't support a lock latch,
or at least, doesn't look like the one I have in mind.

http://www.coolgear.com/images/CD011C00A.jpg

This connector has a shroud around the outside,
and that is where you'd put a feature to support
latching. This still isn't the one I saw before.

http://www.coolgear.com/images/CD011D03A.jpg

This one claims to support a latch. Maybe inside somewhere. Not sure.

http://www.satagear.com/CD011D05A_SATA_Connector.html

I'm convinced, if it wasn't for the poorly engineered
first attempt at a connector, there wouldn't be so many
flavors of connectors out there. There is no way to
know, when you buy a motherboard, what you'll get. I've
even seen motherboards, where connector types are mixed,
some with the shroud, and some without. They use
it to distinguish Southbridge ports, from the ports connected
to a separate RAID controller (they're not sprinkled randomly).

And this connector comes with a fastener, to avoid the
embarrassment of one of your customers, ripping the
connector right out of the motherboard, when removing
a cable :-) A good idea.

http://www.coolgear.com/images/CD011D04A.jpg

I've seen at least one connector with a shroud,
where there is a rectangular hole in the shroud,
where the lock latch grips onto. I cannot find
a picture of it right now.

There is a nice collection of pictures here as well.

http://cooldrives.stores.yahoo.net/saiandsaiiin.html

Paul



  #18  
Old March 21st 09, 10:25 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware
Gerry
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 9,437
Default Sata cabling

JS

The design specification is 50 insertions and removals.

The cable dates from December 2005.

--


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

JS wrote:
It's was deemed a less expensive solution at the time.

I have PATA 80 wire for ATA 100 and ATA 133 drives
(connected using either round PATA cables or the traditional flat
ribbon) plus SATA I and SATA II drives.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against SATA
but they just don't deliver on the advertized speed.
Plus the connector design of SATA does not give
me confidence in constantly connecting Hard Drives
on my "Test" computers.


"Gerry" wrote in message
...
JS

If pata is faster than sata why has sata replaced pata?

BTW I have Sata II

--


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


"JS" @ wrote in message
...
Well, in a crude sense think of SATA
as a two lane highway compared to
PATA as an 8 lane highway. If the PATA
cable design was updated to handle higher
transfer rates I would think that PATA could
be at least 4x faster than SATA.

And an updated PATA cable need not be a
giant size ribbon cable either. Just imagine if
your ram memory was serial access instead
of DDR2 or DDR3.

--
JS
http://www.pagestart.com


"Gerry" wrote in message
...
JS

Interesting. Statistically how do data transfer rates compare?

--


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

JS wrote:
Not crazy over the SATA connectors either.
SATA or Serial ATA has another design flaw
in that by nature serial data transfers can never
be as fast as parallel.


"Gerry" wrote in message
...
I have had a disk connection problem which seems to relate to
failing sata cables. The BIOS has failed intermittently to
detect one or both hard drives. The problem was more obvious
with the master drive so I replaced the cable 14 days ago and
there was no further problem until this morning. The problem
this morning was the slave drive so I have replaced the cable
for that drive. It has now been working for a bit over two hour.
The problem first became apparent a month ago when I found the
system would freeze after it had been running some time. Resetting
sometimes worked and sometimes resulted in a failed boot.
Eventually the system would boot but the problem would happen
again some hours later or the next day. Sometimes there have
been Event Viewer reports -mainly ID: 11 referring to the
Controller. Often the problem is unreported. This is probably
because the Error is occurring before Event Viewer starts. From
a friend I got these comments. "In my view, the SATA 'Connector' is
an engineering blunder. A
sort-of flat
sleeve slides over a notched part on the edge of the board
whereupon sit some exposed/un-insulated traces. Flat conductors
encased within a plastic bit are slid into contact with them.
There is no mechanism but friction to keep the 'connector' in
place. Entirely inadequate. It is not designed for repeated
make/break insertion/removal. If subjected even to a low number
of such operations (design spec is 50), it will fail. (5 000 for an
eSATA connector). If I have to repeatedly disconnect-connect a
drive during testing, I replace the cable as a matter of
routine." I am interested in knowing whether others have encountered
this
problem and how common place it is?

TIA


--


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



  #19  
Old March 21st 09, 10:28 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware
DL
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 3,774
Default Sata cabling

The last time I experienced similar problems, which led to disks failing the
manufacturers test utility, it was as a result of a slightly iffy pwr
supply, that when put in another PC sometime later, went bang
Pwr supply & disks (2) all replaced under warranty from reputable makers
(Samsung & TruePower)

"Gerry" wrote in message
...
I have had a disk connection problem which seems to relate to failing sata
cables. The BIOS has failed intermittently to detect one or both hard
drives. The problem was more obvious with the master drive so I replaced
the cable 14 days ago and there was no further problem until this morning.
The problem this morning was the slave drive so I have replaced the cable
for that drive. It has now been working for a bit over two hour.

The problem first became apparent a month ago when I found the system
would freeze after it had been running some time. Resetting sometimes
worked and sometimes resulted in a failed boot. Eventually the system
would boot but the problem would happen again some hours later or the next
day. Sometimes there have been Event Viewer reports -mainly ID: 11
referring to the Controller. Often the problem is unreported. This is
probably because the Error is occurring before Event Viewer starts.

From a friend I got these comments.

"In my view, the SATA 'Connector' is an engineering blunder. A sort-of
flat
sleeve slides over a notched part on the edge of the board whereupon sit
some exposed/un-insulated traces. Flat conductors encased within a plastic
bit are slid into contact with them. There is no mechanism but friction to
keep the 'connector' in place. Entirely inadequate. It is not designed for
repeated make/break insertion/removal. If subjected even to a low number
of
such operations (design spec is 50), it will fail. (5 000 for an eSATA
connector). If I have to repeatedly disconnect-connect a drive during
testing, I replace the cable as a matter of routine."

I am interested in knowing whether others have encountered this problem
and how common place it is?

TIA


--


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




  #20  
Old March 22nd 09, 02:25 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware
Bill in Co.
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 3,106
Default Sata cabling

The point is, there is no practical design possible that will allow a
parallel cable to reach the transfer rates of a serial one, for the reasons
stated. Note the emphasis on the word practical (meaning realizable) - not
theoretical (such as with a half meter wide cable, and/or shielded cable(s,)
or whatever). (Shielded cables suffer from increased capacitance which
limits their transfer rate, so even if each data signal cable (16 for 16
bit, or 32 for a 32 bit) were shielded, it's still a no go).

JS wrote:
Yes I know about 40 vs 80 design,
what I'm talking about is a total redesign.

And they do have round PATA cables,
not rated any faster but they are not wide and flat.

--
JS
http://www.pagestart.com


"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
They already tried that with the 80 conductor fast ATA cables. While
it
helped out a lot, it sure couldn't even come close to SATA.

Now, if you want a 40 or 80 conductor parallel cable that's a meter wide,
with very wide separation between all the signal carrying conductors (of
which there are a LOT, for parallel)..... perhaps that might work. :-)

Bottom line: it's not at all practical.

JS wrote:
A cable redesign could eliminate
the crosstalk.

--
JS
http://www.pagestart.com


"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
On the surface, that makes sense - but only on the surface. Let me
explain:
In practice, it's a false assumption due to the inherent crosstalk
problems between adjacent signal carrying conductors in the Parallel
ATA
cable. And THAT limits the max transfer rate. OTOH, Serial cables do
NOT have that problem, since only a single line is carrying the data.
Hence, serial cables (like in SATA) can be, and are, much faster.

JS wrote:
Not crazy over the SATA connectors either.
SATA or Serial ATA has another design flaw
in that by nature serial data transfers can never
be as fast as parallel.

--
JS
http://www.pagestart.com


"Gerry" wrote in message
...
I have had a disk connection problem which seems to relate to failing
sata
cables. The BIOS has failed intermittently to detect one or both
hard
drives. The problem was more obvious with the master drive so I
replaced
the cable 14 days ago and there was no further problem until this
morning.
The problem this morning was the slave drive so I have replaced the
cable
for that drive. It has now been working for a bit over two hour.

The problem first became apparent a month ago when I found the system
would freeze after it had been running some time. Resetting sometimes
worked and sometimes resulted in a failed boot. Eventually the system
would boot but the problem would happen again some hours later or the
next
day. Sometimes there have been Event Viewer reports -mainly ID: 11
referring to the Controller. Often the problem is unreported. This is
probably because the Error is occurring before Event Viewer starts.

From a friend I got these comments.

"In my view, the SATA 'Connector' is an engineering blunder. A
sort-of
flat
sleeve slides over a notched part on the edge of the board whereupon
sit
some exposed/un-insulated traces. Flat conductors encased within a
plastic
bit are slid into contact with them. There is no mechanism but
friction
to
keep the 'connector' in place. Entirely inadequate. It is not
designed
for
repeated make/break insertion/removal. If subjected even to a low
number
of
such operations (design spec is 50), it will fail. (5 000 for an
eSATA
connector). If I have to repeatedly disconnect-connect a drive during
testing, I replace the cable as a matter of routine."

I am interested in knowing whether others have encountered this
problem
and how common place it is?

TIA


--


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



  #21  
Old March 22nd 09, 02:45 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware
JS
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 6,475
Default Sata cabling

Well you know the width of a SATA cable.
Serial data transfer right.

Take 4 SATA cables in parallel to a Hard Drive
that has four SATA connectors. What do you
have ... parallel data transfer (4 wide SATA).

Now the data xfer rate should be 4 times faster
than a single SATA cable and the cable width
would be no wider than a PATA cable.

Now I know this is a design stretch, but if you
have a hard drive with Integrated SATA Electronics,
how hard could it be to repeat the circuit design 3 more
times to get what I'll call a SATA IIx4 interface.

Problem is I doubt the current level of a Hard Drive's
mechanical rotation, read/write data rates and buffer
size would be able to feed a 4 wide SATA connection.

--
JS
http://www.pagestart.com


"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
The point is, there is no practical design possible that will allow a
parallel cable to reach the transfer rates of a serial one, for the
reasons stated. Note the emphasis on the word practical (meaning
realizable) - not theoretical (such as with a half meter wide cable,
and/or shielded cable(s,) or whatever). (Shielded cables suffer from
increased capacitance which limits their transfer rate, so even if each
data signal cable (16 for 16 bit, or 32 for a 32 bit) were shielded, it's
still a no go).

JS wrote:
Yes I know about 40 vs 80 design,
what I'm talking about is a total redesign.

And they do have round PATA cables,
not rated any faster but they are not wide and flat.

--
JS
http://www.pagestart.com


"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
They already tried that with the 80 conductor fast ATA cables. While
it
helped out a lot, it sure couldn't even come close to SATA.

Now, if you want a 40 or 80 conductor parallel cable that's a meter
wide,
with very wide separation between all the signal carrying conductors (of
which there are a LOT, for parallel)..... perhaps that might work. :-)

Bottom line: it's not at all practical.

JS wrote:
A cable redesign could eliminate
the crosstalk.

--
JS
http://www.pagestart.com


"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
On the surface, that makes sense - but only on the surface. Let me
explain:
In practice, it's a false assumption due to the inherent crosstalk
problems between adjacent signal carrying conductors in the Parallel
ATA
cable. And THAT limits the max transfer rate. OTOH, Serial cables
do
NOT have that problem, since only a single line is carrying the data.
Hence, serial cables (like in SATA) can be, and are, much faster.

JS wrote:
Not crazy over the SATA connectors either.
SATA or Serial ATA has another design flaw
in that by nature serial data transfers can never
be as fast as parallel.

--
JS
http://www.pagestart.com


"Gerry" wrote in message
...
I have had a disk connection problem which seems to relate to
failing
sata
cables. The BIOS has failed intermittently to detect one or both
hard
drives. The problem was more obvious with the master drive so I
replaced
the cable 14 days ago and there was no further problem until this
morning.
The problem this morning was the slave drive so I have replaced the
cable
for that drive. It has now been working for a bit over two hour.

The problem first became apparent a month ago when I found the
system
would freeze after it had been running some time. Resetting
sometimes
worked and sometimes resulted in a failed boot. Eventually the
system
would boot but the problem would happen again some hours later or
the
next
day. Sometimes there have been Event Viewer reports -mainly ID: 11
referring to the Controller. Often the problem is unreported. This
is
probably because the Error is occurring before Event Viewer starts.

From a friend I got these comments.

"In my view, the SATA 'Connector' is an engineering blunder. A
sort-of
flat
sleeve slides over a notched part on the edge of the board whereupon
sit
some exposed/un-insulated traces. Flat conductors encased within a
plastic
bit are slid into contact with them. There is no mechanism but
friction
to
keep the 'connector' in place. Entirely inadequate. It is not
designed
for
repeated make/break insertion/removal. If subjected even to a low
number
of
such operations (design spec is 50), it will fail. (5 000 for an
eSATA
connector). If I have to repeatedly disconnect-connect a drive
during
testing, I replace the cable as a matter of routine."

I am interested in knowing whether others have encountered this
problem
and how common place it is?

TIA


--


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~





  #22  
Old March 22nd 09, 03:20 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware
Bill in Co.
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 3,106
Default Sata cabling

If we're talking about a true parallel interface, and a 32 bit data bus, 32
separate conductors are required JUST for that part of the interface alone.
And for a 16 bit data bus, it would be 16 conductors, minimum. The problem
with the required size of the connectors to accommodate all that is pretty
obvious. Heck, even the normal 40 or 80 conductor PATA connectors, as small
as they were, presents a physical problem. The Ultra ATA 80 conductor ones
simply interleaved ground wires between all the data wires (to decrease the
crosstalk problem) to raise the max transfer rates.

JS wrote:
Well you know the width of a SATA cable.
Serial data transfer right.


And it's pretty small. Especially in comparison to any PATA ones!

Take 4 SATA cables in parallel to a Hard Drive
that has four SATA connectors. What do you
have ... parallel data transfer (4 wide SATA).


But that's not true and complete parallel data transfer, which requires
separate conductors for EACH data bit being transferred. (16 for 16 bit data
bus, 32 for 32 bit data bus), to gain the theoretical potential advantage of
parallel transfer.

Now the data xfer rate should be 4 times faster
than a single SATA cable and the cable width
would be no wider than a PATA cable.


I doubt if just doing that is really worth all the increased cost and
complexity.

Now I know this is a design stretch, but if you
have a hard drive with Integrated SATA Electronics,
how hard could it be to repeat the circuit design 3 more
times to get what I'll call a SATA IIx4 interface.

Problem is I doubt the current level of a Hard Drive's
mechanical rotation, read/write data rates and buffer
size would be able to feed a 4 wide SATA connection.


And also - it would still only be 4 wide.
That's nothing like the improvement gained when going from PATA to SATA, so
in addition to what you wrote above, it's probably not worth it.

--
JS
http://www.pagestart.com


"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
The point is, there is no practical design possible that will allow a
parallel cable to reach the transfer rates of a serial one, for the
reasons stated. Note the emphasis on the word practical (meaning
realizable) - not theoretical (such as with a half meter wide cable,
and/or shielded cable(s,) or whatever). (Shielded cables suffer from
increased capacitance which limits their transfer rate, so even if each
data signal cable (16 for 16 bit, or 32 for a 32 bit) were shielded, it's
still a no go).

JS wrote:
Yes I know about 40 vs 80 design,
what I'm talking about is a total redesign.

And they do have round PATA cables,
not rated any faster but they are not wide and flat.

--
JS
http://www.pagestart.com


"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
They already tried that with the 80 conductor fast ATA cables. While
it
helped out a lot, it sure couldn't even come close to SATA.

Now, if you want a 40 or 80 conductor parallel cable that's a meter
wide,
with very wide separation between all the signal carrying conductors
(of
which there are a LOT, for parallel)..... perhaps that might work.
:-)

Bottom line: it's not at all practical.

JS wrote:
A cable redesign could eliminate
the crosstalk.

--
JS
http://www.pagestart.com


"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
On the surface, that makes sense - but only on the surface. Let me
explain:
In practice, it's a false assumption due to the inherent crosstalk
problems between adjacent signal carrying conductors in the Parallel
ATA
cable. And THAT limits the max transfer rate. OTOH, Serial cables
do
NOT have that problem, since only a single line is carrying the data.
Hence, serial cables (like in SATA) can be, and are, much faster.

JS wrote:
Not crazy over the SATA connectors either.
SATA or Serial ATA has another design flaw
in that by nature serial data transfers can never
be as fast as parallel.

--
JS
http://www.pagestart.com


"Gerry" wrote in message
...
I have had a disk connection problem which seems to relate to
failing
sata
cables. The BIOS has failed intermittently to detect one or both
hard
drives. The problem was more obvious with the master drive so I
replaced
the cable 14 days ago and there was no further problem until this
morning.
The problem this morning was the slave drive so I have replaced the
cable
for that drive. It has now been working for a bit over two hour.

The problem first became apparent a month ago when I found the
system
would freeze after it had been running some time. Resetting
sometimes
worked and sometimes resulted in a failed boot. Eventually the
system
would boot but the problem would happen again some hours later or
the
next
day. Sometimes there have been Event Viewer reports -mainly ID: 11
referring to the Controller. Often the problem is unreported. This
is
probably because the Error is occurring before Event Viewer starts.

From a friend I got these comments.

"In my view, the SATA 'Connector' is an engineering blunder. A
sort-of
flat
sleeve slides over a notched part on the edge of the board
whereupon
sit
some exposed/un-insulated traces. Flat conductors encased within a
plastic
bit are slid into contact with them. There is no mechanism but
friction
to
keep the 'connector' in place. Entirely inadequate. It is not
designed
for
repeated make/break insertion/removal. If subjected even to a low
number
of
such operations (design spec is 50), it will fail. (5 000 for an
eSATA
connector). If I have to repeatedly disconnect-connect a drive
during
testing, I replace the cable as a matter of routine."

I am interested in knowing whether others have encountered this
problem
and how common place it is?

TIA


--


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



  #23  
Old March 22nd 09, 03:48 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware
JS
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 6,475
Default Sata cabling

Does a SATA cable look anything like a PATA cable,
no it doesn't. So who is to say a high speed Parallel
interface cable has to look anything like today's PATA cables.

--
JS
http://www.pagestart.com


"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
If we're talking about a true parallel interface, and a 32 bit data bus,
32 separate conductors are required JUST for that part of the interface
alone. And for a 16 bit data bus, it would be 16 conductors, minimum.
The problem with the required size of the connectors to accommodate all
that is pretty obvious. Heck, even the normal 40 or 80 conductor PATA
connectors, as small as they were, presents a physical problem. The
Ultra ATA 80 conductor ones simply interleaved ground wires between all
the data wires (to decrease the crosstalk problem) to raise the max
transfer rates.

JS wrote:
Well you know the width of a SATA cable.
Serial data transfer right.


And it's pretty small. Especially in comparison to any PATA ones!

Take 4 SATA cables in parallel to a Hard Drive
that has four SATA connectors. What do you
have ... parallel data transfer (4 wide SATA).


But that's not true and complete parallel data transfer, which requires
separate conductors for EACH data bit being transferred. (16 for 16 bit
data bus, 32 for 32 bit data bus), to gain the theoretical potential
advantage of parallel transfer.

Now the data xfer rate should be 4 times faster
than a single SATA cable and the cable width
would be no wider than a PATA cable.


I doubt if just doing that is really worth all the increased cost and
complexity.

Now I know this is a design stretch, but if you
have a hard drive with Integrated SATA Electronics,
how hard could it be to repeat the circuit design 3 more
times to get what I'll call a SATA IIx4 interface.

Problem is I doubt the current level of a Hard Drive's
mechanical rotation, read/write data rates and buffer
size would be able to feed a 4 wide SATA connection.


And also - it would still only be 4 wide.
That's nothing like the improvement gained when going from PATA to SATA,
so in addition to what you wrote above, it's probably not worth it.

--
JS
http://www.pagestart.com


"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
The point is, there is no practical design possible that will allow a
parallel cable to reach the transfer rates of a serial one, for the
reasons stated. Note the emphasis on the word practical (meaning
realizable) - not theoretical (such as with a half meter wide cable,
and/or shielded cable(s,) or whatever). (Shielded cables suffer from
increased capacitance which limits their transfer rate, so even if each
data signal cable (16 for 16 bit, or 32 for a 32 bit) were shielded,
it's
still a no go).

JS wrote:
Yes I know about 40 vs 80 design,
what I'm talking about is a total redesign.

And they do have round PATA cables,
not rated any faster but they are not wide and flat.

--
JS
http://www.pagestart.com


"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
They already tried that with the 80 conductor fast ATA cables.
While
it
helped out a lot, it sure couldn't even come close to SATA.

Now, if you want a 40 or 80 conductor parallel cable that's a meter
wide,
with very wide separation between all the signal carrying conductors
(of
which there are a LOT, for parallel)..... perhaps that might work. :-)

Bottom line: it's not at all practical.

JS wrote:
A cable redesign could eliminate
the crosstalk.

--
JS
http://www.pagestart.com


"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
On the surface, that makes sense - but only on the surface. Let me
explain:
In practice, it's a false assumption due to the inherent crosstalk
problems between adjacent signal carrying conductors in the Parallel
ATA
cable. And THAT limits the max transfer rate. OTOH, Serial cables
do
NOT have that problem, since only a single line is carrying the
data.
Hence, serial cables (like in SATA) can be, and are, much faster.

JS wrote:
Not crazy over the SATA connectors either.
SATA or Serial ATA has another design flaw
in that by nature serial data transfers can never
be as fast as parallel.

--
JS
http://www.pagestart.com


"Gerry" wrote in message
...
I have had a disk connection problem which seems to relate to
failing
sata
cables. The BIOS has failed intermittently to detect one or both
hard
drives. The problem was more obvious with the master drive so I
replaced
the cable 14 days ago and there was no further problem until this
morning.
The problem this morning was the slave drive so I have replaced
the
cable
for that drive. It has now been working for a bit over two hour.

The problem first became apparent a month ago when I found the
system
would freeze after it had been running some time. Resetting
sometimes
worked and sometimes resulted in a failed boot. Eventually the
system
would boot but the problem would happen again some hours later or
the
next
day. Sometimes there have been Event Viewer reports -mainly ID: 11
referring to the Controller. Often the problem is unreported. This
is
probably because the Error is occurring before Event Viewer
starts.

From a friend I got these comments.

"In my view, the SATA 'Connector' is an engineering blunder. A
sort-of
flat
sleeve slides over a notched part on the edge of the board
whereupon
sit
some exposed/un-insulated traces. Flat conductors encased within a
plastic
bit are slid into contact with them. There is no mechanism but
friction
to
keep the 'connector' in place. Entirely inadequate. It is not
designed
for
repeated make/break insertion/removal. If subjected even to a low
number
of
such operations (design spec is 50), it will fail. (5 000 for an
eSATA
connector). If I have to repeatedly disconnect-connect a drive
during
testing, I replace the cable as a matter of routine."

I am interested in knowing whether others have encountered this
problem
and how common place it is?

TIA


--


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~





  #24  
Old March 22nd 09, 04:00 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware
JohnO
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 360
Default Sata cabling


"JS" @ wrote in message ...
It's was deemed a less expensive solution at the time.

I have PATA 80 wire for ATA 100 and ATA 133 drives
(connected using either round PATA cables or the traditional flat ribbon)
plus SATA I and SATA II drives.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against SATA
but they just don't deliver on the advertized speed.
Plus the connector design of SATA does not give
me confidence in constantly connecting Hard Drives
on my "Test" computers.


The HDD speed bottleneck is the platter/head transfer, not the electrical
interface. No IDE drive ever transferred data at the limits of the
electrical interface...platter/head was always slower than the ATAPI
standard of the day.

As to serial being faster, serial has many advantages over parallel when
speeds become very high. For instance, jitter and skew are major factors. As
speeds and cable length increase, reliable data transfer becomes less
likely. Longer high-speed parallel cables are impossible unless a
differential cabling system is used, such as with later versions of SCSI,
and even then the length is limited. External IDE was never practical, where
eSATA is just a new physical implementation of the existing SATA standard,
more or less.

In our experience the SATA connectors last many times longer than any IDE
connector ever could. They're far from perfect, but an order of magnitude
better than 40-pin connectors.

-John O


  #25  
Old March 22nd 09, 04:12 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware
JohnO
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 360
Default Sata cabling


"JS" @ wrote in message ...
Does a SATA cable look anything like a PATA cable,
no it doesn't. So who is to say a high speed Parallel
interface cable has to look anything like today's PATA cables.


The horse has left the barn...to late for that now. Serial is the new
parallel. :-)

Best example...Ethernet. May be duplex, but serial nonetheless.

-John O


  #26  
Old March 22nd 09, 04:58 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware
Bill in Co.
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 3,106
Default Sata cabling

JohnO wrote:
"JS" @ wrote in message ...
It's was deemed a less expensive solution at the time.

I have PATA 80 wire for ATA 100 and ATA 133 drives
(connected using either round PATA cables or the traditional flat ribbon)
plus SATA I and SATA II drives.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against SATA
but they just don't deliver on the advertized speed.
Plus the connector design of SATA does not give
me confidence in constantly connecting Hard Drives
on my "Test" computers.


The HDD speed bottleneck is the platter/head transfer, not the electrical
interface. No IDE drive ever transferred data at the limits of the
electrical interface...platter/head was always slower than the ATAPI
standard of the day.

As to serial being faster, serial has many advantages over parallel when
speeds become very high. For instance, jitter and skew are major factors.
As
speeds and cable length increase, reliable data transfer becomes less
likely. Longer high-speed parallel cables are impossible unless a
differential cabling system is used, such as with later versions of SCSI,
and even then the length is limited.


Yup.
And the net size of the cables and connectors needed would be impractical.

External IDE was never practical,


Nope. For the reasons we've both covered, now.

where eSATA is just a new physical implementation of the existing SATA,
standard, more or less.


And kudos for some further elucidation on it. :-)


  #27  
Old March 24th 09, 10:47 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware
M.I.5¾
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,722
Default Sata cabling


"JS" @ wrote in message ...
Not crazy over the SATA connectors either.
SATA or Serial ATA has another design flaw
in that by nature serial data transfers can never
be as fast as parallel.


Totally incorrect.

You may be thinking from the good old days where RS232 would never operate
anywhere near as fast a Parallel (Centronic) connection (this was a
limitation of the UART devices of the period, not the inherent technology).

But the reality is: that if you want the fastest communication possible, it
has to be serial - parallel just doesn't cut the mustard. This is because
as the data rate gets faster, the signal pulses get shorter and shorter.
With a parallel connection, for various technical reasons, the signal pulses
travel down the parallel conductors at different speeds (known as the
propagation coefficient). With long pulses, it is relatively easy to strobe
the receiver when all signals are valid. But as the pulses get shorter and
shorter, there comes a point where at no point in time do all the pulses
have a point where the data is valid because they arrive at different times.
It is worth remembering that in a transmission line that a pulse of just .01
nanoseconds duration (a long pulse by modern standards) is approximately two
millimetres long.

Serial communication, on the other hand, completely solves the problem
because, as there is only one transmission channel, the propagation
coefficient is fixed for all pulses. The principal limitation to the
transmission data rate of a serial connection these days is solely the
properties of the copper transmission line itself, but this can be resolved
by turning to fibre optic systems. Even these have limitations dependent on
the fibre material with glass being able to carry a far greater data rate
than plastic.

1.33 Gb/s is the limitation of parallel technology (even with a short cable
around a foot long), but serial ATA III* is already operating at 6 Gb/s.

* Not to be confused with ATA 3 (an unofficial designation) which is really
ATA II, .




  #28  
Old March 24th 09, 10:56 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware
M.I.5¾
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,722
Default Sata cabling


"JS" @ wrote in message ...
Well, in a crude sense think of SATA
as a two lane highway compared to
PATA as an 8 lane highway. If the PATA
cable design was updated to handle higher
transfer rates I would think that PATA could
be at least 4x faster than SATA.


Not possible. 1.33 Gb/s is the practical limit for a copper parallel
transmission line.

And an updated PATA cable need not be a
giant size ribbon cable either. Just imagine if
your ram memory was serial access instead
of DDR2 or DDR3.


Actually, serial RAM memory already exists, but it is only used in very
specialised applications due to the cost. It is, of course, much much
faster than the type of memory that is encountered in a PC, but PC memory is
largely hamstrung because it is based on dynamic architecture which is far
slower (and cheaper) than static architecture. This is why your PC has a
apir of processor caches to speed RAM access up. The L2 cache is a chunk of
static RAM which is about 4 times faster than the main RAM and the L1 cache
is static RAM which is vastly faster than the L2 (and very expensive - which
is why it isn't very big).

FLASH memory is exclusively serial access.


  #29  
Old March 24th 09, 11:08 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware
M.I.5¾
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,722
Default Sata cabling


"JS" @ wrote in message ...
It's was deemed a less expensive solution at the time.

I have PATA 80 wire for ATA 100 and ATA 133 drives
(connected using either round PATA cables or the traditional flat ribbon)
plus SATA I and SATA II drives.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against SATA
but they just don't deliver on the advertized speed.
Plus the connector design of SATA does not give
me confidence in constantly connecting Hard Drives
on my "Test" computers.


It was true that when introduced, SATA I did not deliver any speed gain over
(P)ATA 133, but this was due to the choice of data encoding that they
employed which gave a real world speed of around 1.2 Gb/s, which was fairly
close to the ATA it replaced, if slightly slower.

SATA I quickly adopted something called 'Native Command Queuing' (NCQ) as an
optional feature (to preserve backward compatibility) which gave it the
intended data rate of 1.5 Gb/s. This technology was nothing new as SCSI
disc drives had always featured it.

SATA II featured NCQ as standard and thus the advertised 3 Gb/s speed was
delivered.

It should be remembered that the data rates represent the maximum burst
speed for the data, the actual real data rate is, as ever, hampered by the
drive itself having to mechanically move the read/write head and to wait for
the data block to come around. But with large on disc caches that are now
common, things are getting better all the time.


  #30  
Old March 24th 09, 11:16 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware
M.I.5¾
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,722
Default Sata cabling


"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
On the surface, that makes sense - but only on the surface. Let me
explain:
In practice, it's a false assumption due to the inherent crosstalk
problems between adjacent signal carrying conductors in the Parallel ATA
cable. And THAT limits the max transfer rate. OTOH, Serial cables do
NOT have that problem, since only a single line is carrying the data.
Hence, serial cables (like in SATA) can be, and are, much faster.


That's only part of the problem. Crosstalk can be minimised by good cable
design. That was the object of the 80 conductor (P)ATA cable which placed a
grounded conductor either side of each signal carrying conductor. This
reduces crosstalk, but more importantly provides the signal with a
transmission path that more closely resembles an 'ideal' transmission line.

But it isn't the cross talk that really limits the parallel system. It's
something called 'skew'. This is where the individual signals in the
individual transmission lines arive at the distant end of the cable at
different times. Low voltage diferential signalling was introduced on some
systems to reduce crosstalk even further but there was no solution to the
problem of skew. Serial systems do not suffer from skew, hence the
transmission rates are higher.




 




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