Could someone please tell me the difference between SATA and ATA hard drives please?
To start with it helps to know what the name stands for – SATA is Serial Advanced Technology Attachment PATA is Parallel Advanced Technology Attachment Aside from different power connections and cable requirements for the motherboard connections a SATA drive functions the same way as a PATA drive in that it sends and recieves data. SATA can be used for both Hard Drives and Optical Drives (typically CD’s and DVD’s) the same as PATA, but the main advantage of SATA is a faster data transfer speed. If the software will support it you can hotplug a SATA Drive, that is to say plug it in without shutting down the Operating System and the PC, you cant do that with PATA or you will damage not only the drive but risk damage to the Mainboard and the Operating System. PATA was formally known as IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) and did have an ATA tag to it to denote faster transfer speeds of some drive models over others. Serial ATA adapters and devices communicate over a high-speed serial cable
