Seagate and AMD Unveil World's First Demonstration of Serial ATA 6 Gbps

[malware]

Seagate, teaming with microprocessor manufacturing leader Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) at the Everything Channel Xchange Conference in New Orleans this week, today unveiled the world's first public demonstration of next-generation high-speed data transfer - Serial ATA 6Gigabit/second - for bandwidth-hungry desktop and laptop PC applications including gaming, streaming video and graphics multimedia.
The Serial ATA (SATA) 6Gb/second storage interface will deliver the highest performance - burst speeds of up to 6Gigabits per second - for all PC applications, maintain backward compatibility with the SATA 3Gb/second and SATA 1.5Gb/second interfaces, and use the same cables and connectors as previous SATA generations to ease integration. The third generation of the mainstream storage interface for desktop and notebook computers also enhances power efficiency and improves Native Command Queuing, a SATA feature, to increase overall system performance and data transfer speeds of mainstream PC applications but especially applications with heavily transactional workloads such as scientific modeling and forecasting, and engineering design and simulation.


"The increasing reliance of consumers and businesses worldwide on digital information is giving rise to gaming, digital video and audio, streaming video, graphics and other applications that require even more bandwidth, driving demand for PC interfaces that can carry even more digital content," said Joan Motsinger, Seagate vice president of Personal Systems Marketing and Strategy. "The SATA 6 Gb/second storage interface will meet this demand for higher-bandwidth PCs. Seagate has a long history of being first to market with new technologies such as Serial ATA, perpendicular recording and self-encrypting drives, and is pleased to be teaming with AMD to stage the world's first public demonstration of SATA 6 Gb/second storage."


"AMD strives to deliver platform technology that our technology partners can use to create high- performance desktop and laptop PCs," said Leslie Sobon, vice president of Product Marketing, AMD. "The new SATA 6 Gb/second technology not only incorporates the best features of previous SATA generations but also includes new enhancements. This innovation enables AMD to continue to evolve its technology platforms and to develop low-cost designs that our technology partners can use to improve their own PC and laptop products."


The Seagate and AMD demonstration features two Seagate SATA disk drives - one a shipping Barracuda(R) 7200.12 3 Gb/second hard drive and the other a prototype Barracuda 6 Gb/second drive - in a desktop PC to show the performance difference between the two generations. The PC is powered by an AMD prototype SATA 6 Gb/second chipset. The Seagate SATA 3 Gb/second drive runs at more than 2.5 Gigabits per second and the SATA 6 Gb/second drive at 5.5 Gigabits per second, with the performance of each storage interface displayed on the PC monitor.

Serial ATA 6 Gb/second - Blazing speed for next-generation personal computing
Serial ATA (SATA), the mainstream storage interface for desktop and notebook disk drives, is currently available in two speeds - 3 Gb/second and 1.5 Gb/second. SATA 6 Gb/second was developed by the Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO) under the Serial ATA Revision 3.0 specification.

In keeping with SATA-IO objectives for designing a low-cost interface for desktop and notebook PCs, SATA 6 Gb/second maintains the low cost and low-power design requirements of previous SATA generations, and is designed to be backward compatible with SATA 3 Gb/second connectors, cables and other hardware.

Source: PRNewswire

[shiny_red_cobra]

meh... they can make the transfer speeds as fast as they want, but what's the point when the hard drive itself is by far the slowest device in the computer?

[LoneEagle70]

Originally Posted by shiny_red_cobra

meh... they can make the transfer speeds as fast as they want, but what's the point when the hard drive itself is by far the slowest device in the computer?

HHD will die soon . Building a RAID-0 with many SSD was easily busting that 3Gb/s. We built a server with a couple of SSD and had to buy a better controller card to handle the flow.

Note: The use of raptor/velociraptor in RAID-0 can have the same problems here.

Here an old article:
http://www.nextlevelhardware.com/storage/battleship/

[BazookaJoe]

I agree - I'd be surprised if the SATA bus itself even lasts much more than 2 or 3 years.

I'd expect to see drive interfaces going optic or some such sooner or later.

[TreadR]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96dWOEa4Djs

[LoneEagle70]

Originally Posted by TreadR

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96dWOEa4Djs

OMG!

What kind of controller card did they use to handle 2GB/sec?

[BOSE]

Originally Posted by LoneEagle70

HHD will die soon . Building a RAID-0 with many SSD was easily busting that 3Gb/s. We built a server with a couple of SSD and had to buy a better controller card to handle the flow.

Note: The use of raptor/velociraptor in RAID-0 can have the same problems here.

Here an old article:
http://www.nextlevelhardware.com/storage/battleship/

It doesnt matter you schmuck! No single SSD in the world can transfer at SATAII 3Gb/s speeds. No does the raptor/velociraptor in RAID-0.

It doesn't matter if you have 5 SSD drives in RAID-0, each drive is still connected to its own individual 3Gb/s port.

[ShadowFold]

Originally Posted by TreadR

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96dWOEa4Djs

My head. Just exploded.

[PCpraiser100]

Does this mean that we have to get another motherboard for this? Cmon.

[PP Mguire]

Originally Posted by BOSE

It doesnt matter you schmuck! No single SSD in the world can transfer at SATAII 3Gb/s speeds. No does the raptor/velociraptor in RAID-0.

It doesn't matter if you have 5 SSD drives in RAID-0, each drive is still connected to its own individual 3Gb/s port.

Guess again. Intels latest SSDs are starting to reach that 300meg cap.

[BOSE]

Originally Posted by PP Mguire

Guess again. Intels latest SSDs are starting to reach that 300meg cap.

But they havent hit the limit yet.

[PP Mguire]

But SSDs havent been around to even begin reaching their full potential in speeds. This argument has been had and won before on these very forums. Why argue over why upgrade is BAD in a world of steadily inclining technology?

And, a couple in raid 0 will hit the limit very easily. A single one can reach to 250.

[BOSE]

No one is arguing that upgrade is bad.....

And no, a couple cant hit the limit in RAID 0. Because they are independent of each other, and are on the separate SATA cable. Its not an IDE cable, where you have two drives on the same ribbon.

Even if you had 10 drives in RAID 0+1+5, you still wont max out a SATAII.

Watch the video that was posted and then think about it as long as it takes for you to get it.

[_jM]

Originally Posted by TreadR

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96dWOEa4Djs

Holy shit... umm thats all i can say after watching that video.

[niko084]

Originally Posted by PP Mguire

Guess again. Intels latest SSDs are starting to reach that 300meg cap.

300meg cap???

For what a burst?

6gb/s Sata3 is only going to help with newer ultra high end drives that burst those speeds, we are a long ways from having nominal 3gb/s throughput from a single drive.

3gb/s is 384MB/s...

Intels current fastest ssd is-
Sustained sequential read: up to 250 MB/s
Sustained sequential write: up to 170 MB/s

Granted that's flying, but it still needs over 50% gain in read to hit the cap...

[TruthTeller]

so when will they get ssd's that can acctual take advantege of this?

[TreadR]

Originally Posted by BOSE

It doesn't matter if you have 5 SSD drives in RAID-0, each drive is still connected to its own individual 3Gb/s port.

Not really... how about this:
http://www.techpowerup.com/index.php?80422

Consider this, right now companies follow a trend, SSD's typically are in 2.5" format, and when the market will be saturated in a few years, with the possibility that Intel won't add SATA 6 support to the new platform at first, people will be stuck to SATA 3 but given the need to bring forth new products various designs might appear. How about an SSD that will fit in a 5.25" bay and that will feature 2, 3, or 4 internal "disks" in RAID 0, all in a single device. I've seen SSD's with 2 units in RAID 0 as a single SSD 2.5" drive on TPU, so who's to say they won't push it further?... all on one SATA connector! (to counter your argument)

[BOSE]

To counter your argument.

That would be plain dumb using that enclosure or something a like, unless slower drives are used so a single SATAII port is not maxed out.

[hat]

Originally Posted by ShadowFold

My head. Just exploded.

IT TAKES MORE THAN 6TB TO GET INTO MORDOR

yes, put enough things on one bus and you'll clog it eventually. our point is that one single drive will never fill 3gbps, let alone 6gbps. and nobody has 20 grand to spend of 24 ssds

[TreadR]

Originally Posted by BOSE

That would be plain dumb using that enclosure or something a like

Like integrated RAID? Yeah, pretty dumb!

Originally Posted by BOSE

unless slower drives are used so a single SATAII port is not maxed out.

Now you're contradicting yourself.

Originally Posted by BOSE

No single SSD in the world can transfer at SATAII 3Gb/s speeds.

[BOSE]

How am i contradicting my self??