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What is a Serial ATA disk drive?

April 26, 2017ATA disk drive serial

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What is a Serial ATA disk drive?

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To put it in a nutshell, the ATA Serial standard is a simplified packet switching network between a motherboard or computer backplane and a disk drive. It employs balanced voltage (differential) amplifiers and four wires/two pairs (transmission line) to connect transmitters to receivers in a manner similar to the 100BASE-TX Ethernet. The pins in the spec are labeled TX+, TX-, RX+, and RX- just like they are in the twisted-pair Ethernet. There is no specification for a standard ATA Serial cable (just electrical requirements it must meet), but each pair of wires will probably be parallel and shielded (there is a cable construction example in the spec.). There is a separate power cable.