CompTIA A+ 1101 SATA, SCSI, and PATA Device Cables

SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment)

- uses a 1 meter cable
- internal
- 7-pin connector
- connects a storage device to the motherboard
- uses a 15-pin connector to connect to power

revision 1.0:
- SATA 1.5 Gb/s

revision 2.0:
- SATA 3.0 Gb/s

revision 3.0:
- SATA 6.0 Gb/s

revision 3.2:
- SATA 16 Gb/s

eSATA (External SATA)

- speeds match the (internal) SATA version
- uses a 2 meter cable
- similar in size to SATA, with a very different connector

The SCSI (Small Computer Systems Interface) Standard

- originally designed to string many peripherals together on a single controller (up to 16 devices in an SCSI chain)
- parallel and serial connectivity, depending on the format
- not just for hard drives

Serial Attached SCSI (SAS)

- move from parallel to serial
- point-to-point connection
- no daisy chains or terminator required, unlike parallel SCSI

SCSI Interface and Connectors (Image)

The PATA (Parallel AT Attachment) Standard

- speeds from 16 MB/s through 133 MB/s
- a legacy technology

PATA Cabling

- 40-pin connectors on a ribbon cable
- the first device is "device 0", and the end device is "device 1" (swapped when using an 80-pin cable, which has minimized cross talk)

PATA Connector

- the missing pin allows us to properly orient the cable into the connector