In the history of computing it is common for I / O interfaces to end up appearing and disappearing, usually because a better specification appears or there is a duplication of functions that makes the less popular port end in disuse. This is precisely what seems to happen to the SATA interface, which has the Sword of Damocles on it.
The SATA interface has been around for a long time, it is especially related to the use of conventional mechanical hard drives and optical readers. The former refuse to disappear but have the expiration date on the table, the latter no longer exist on PC and the distribution of software in physical format has completely gone down in history.
Does not allow the SSD to be used well in games
The arrival of new generation video game consoles has brought with it the use of SSD disks, but these have not been connected to a SATA interface but to a fourth generation PCI Express. Which has a bandwidth several times faster than the SATA interface.
The advantage of the bandwidth of the PCI Express interface will allow you to create games with unified maps without transitions, something that is only possible using interfaces with speeds of Gigabytes per second, against the information of Gigabits per second that can transmit at most the SATA interface.
In this case, SSD drives, we are not facing the limitations of classic hard drives since the storage in both cases are NAND Flash memory chips, changing only the communication interface.
The USB interface is already replacing the SATA interface
If we look at the transfer speed of the fastest SATA interface available so far, we will see that it cannot exceed 6 Gbps so it has already been surpassed by the third generation USB interface and when the fourth generation is standardized, with a transfer speed of 40 Gigabits per second.
Many computer motherboards do not have SATA interfaces connected to their I / O or Southbridge controllers, instead these interfaces are converted and rewired to internal PCI Express or USB interfaces. Therefore, most internal I / O controllers no longer have SATA support and it is only through external converters that this type of interface is still supported.
When will the end occur with the SATA interface?
Today there are a lot of SATA devices, but the same could be said when ports like PS / 2, LPT1, COM, IEEE-1394 and many other I / O interfaces that have been appearing and disappearing over time. .
The disappearance of the SATA port will come from the hand of PC Gaming, due to the fact that games at a certain point will begin to require SSD disks, because they will have to carry to and from consoles where the SSD disks have a PCI Express interface. On the other hand, external storage based on USB interfaces can already operate at much higher speeds than SATA.
So it’s only a matter of time before the SATA interface falls off the specification lists and it will be sooner than is generally believed.