TimmyHeSata: the new USB?
December 22nd 2006 04:18
With Firewire long gone, and USB the reigning champion, one question still lingers - who is the successor? In a world which is never satisfied with the same speed for longer than six months, companies like IBM and Intel are constantly searching for a new standard that will take the place of the old one. Finally, it looks like USB may be knocked off its pedestal.
Enter e-Sata, short for external Serial ATA, essentially an external appropriation of the SATA standard that is now the widely used form of connector for internal hard drives. Convential SATA 1.0 connectors allow for an actual transfer rate of 150mb/s, and current testing suggests that eSata is approaching that speed, tested at 115mb/s for external hard disks, a stark comparison to the 50-60mb/s per second currently offered under the USB 2.0 standard.
eSata has been under testing since 2004, and is promising, but of course has its drawbacks. Its cord length is restricted to two metres, an unfortunate small distance in comparison to USB and Firewire. In addition, eSata does not provide power through the same cable, and so the more demanding of devices would require external power, or at least power through a separate USB channel.
Nevertheless, the standard is already being picked up by some companies, with external hard drives already available for the connector. It may not be the optimal technological standard in its current state, and as such will not broach the USB throne anytime soon, however it is simply a matter of time before something else does.
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