SAS and SATA

SAS as well as SATA are two of the technologies computers utilize for transferring data off motherboards to storage and the reverse. Both of them do exactly the same job, though they’re built with different hardware.

SAS is usually more expensive and is best suited to usage in servers, or high-processing computer workstations.
SATA is cheaper and best suited to desktop storage.

Key tech terms

It is no surprise that the modern computer is a highly complex piece of technology. You can be studying hard disk back plane for a long time and still have plenty to master. Therefore, let’s define a computer in the simplest possible terms.

Imagine a computer as the size of a city. There are neighborhoods in the city. It has streets that join all neighborhoods.

The city is home to millions of residents living in it. Let me list all the neighborhoods that are important to the city of St. Hewlett-Packard.

1. Motherboard

In reality the motherboard is actually an extremely thin circuit board inside your computer. It is where all of the necessary hardware components such as the GPU and CPU, are connected to one another.

For a better understanding of it quickly, think of this motherboard in the metro area that is St. Packard. It is the most crowded and most populated area in this city and is the home of some of the most important areas.

CPU

In the beginning, you’re in the vicinity that is the CPU. This is the place where City Hall is. The hdd extender oversees the entire town of St. Packard and issues numerous instructions to the city must follow.

GPU

Another significant neighborhood is GPU. GPU is the hub of creativity that is located in St. Packard, basically the city’s Hollywood. The GPU produces all the visuals projected on your computer’s monitor.

2. Storage

A vast suburb is situated near the edges of the motherboard. It’s known as “storage.” Like real-life suburbs storage is where a lot of people live and relax.

3. Connectors

Connectors are the roads that run through St. Packard. They connect the various communities to each other. In real life roads are constructed from asphalt or concrete. In a computer, roads are made from metal similar to copper wire. Automobiles can travel effortlessly on asphalt. Similar to electricity, it travels effortlessly across metal surfaces.

4. Binary code

Binary code can be described as the name of the language that is utilized by the people of St. Packard. It’s a basic language comprised of just two numbers that are 0s and 1s. Everything you have on your computer such as documents, photos videos software, web browsers visuals and more – is made of a distinct mixture of 1s and 0s [22.

5. Bytes

Let’s discuss those who reside in cities. Every individual is”byte. “byte.” A byte is a data. Everything you have on your computer – also documents, images video software, web browsers and even visuals – are comprised of bytes.

A byte is actually nothing more than an electrical pulse

If an electric current is running, you’ll see a 1
If there’s no electrical flow, you’ll get zero
Each byte is composed of eight numbers
Computer files are created from thousands or hundreds of millions, or thousands of bytes

When data is relayed to the computer, the computer sends an electrical pulse through copper wiring (connectors) that connect the various hardware components. The pulse is reflected by whatever the binary code of the file is.

6. Computer bus

Computer buses are an interconnected highway that connects several cities. The most effective highways are those with many lanes. Lanes with more lanes mean a greater circulation of the traffic. Similar is the case with computers.

One of these highways inside your computer connects your motherboard to storage. This is the place where SAS and SATA come in.

SAS and SATA

SAS as well as SATA are two highways that we can compare. However, each one is constructed slightly differently which means that the speed of traffic varies on each of them.

7. Parallel vs Serial Communication

SAS and SATA both make use of serial communication. Serial communication implies that the highway includes both southbound and northbound (or the westbound and eastbound) lanes:

Data can be transferred via the motherboard to the storage.
The data can transfer from the storage onto the motherboard.

Serial communication has replaced parallel communication, and is currently out of date in most computers. In the early days of parallel communication, the data coming in as well as outgoing data were sent via separate cables. Imagine having two highways with one only having northbound lanes, the other that has only southbound lanes and the highways are located about a mile away from each other.

The good aspect of simultaneous communication is that the road was equipped with a lot of lanes that could accommodate more traffic simultaneously. But there were some issues:

The cables were long.
Multiple cables occupied the space within the computer.

Another issue was a bigger one. Electric currents produce tiny magnetic fields. When two cables are connected to one another their magnetic fields interrupt the transmission of data between them. This causes data to be transferred slower or even not transmitted at all in some cases.

Serial communication is a solution to these problems:

The cables are shorter and give computer makers more flexibility in designing the computer’s design.
The cables are made of “dividers” that prevent magnetic field interference.
Serial communication allows storage drives to store data that is received.

Storage is briefly explained

Let’s discuss this suburban area in the suburbs of town storage. Storage is an extremely important neighborhood. All the bits which make up your computer’s files are stored in storage. However, they move out of storage often.

Let’s say, for instance that you’ve been writing documents in Microsoft Word. The document was saved into it’s “Documents” folder. You open the Documents folder, and double-click the document in order to open it.

The bits of data that comprise your document are stored in a storage.
The computer sends a signal to storage that it requires the bytes.
The bytes are released from storage through The SAS as well as SATA cables, and then travel to the CPU on the motherboard. It’s the CPU which is running Microsoft Word.
After you’ve completed your creating for your work day save the document.
The bytes are transferred back to SATA or SAS cables. SAS cables or SATA cables, and then reenter storage.

As you will observe, SAS and SATA can be essential to the computer’s process. utilizes in order to save and access data.

SATA explained

SATA is “serial advanced technology attachment.” Advanced technology attachment (ATA) was the original version of the technology that was utilized in parallel communications. SATA is the replacement for it.

SATA is used in 2 areas:

A SATA cable
SATA connectors are the connectors to which the cable connects

There are SATA connectors on motherboards that are compatible as well as hard drives. It is important to note the fact that SATA isn’t a storage device by itself. Instead, storage drives can be constructed using SATA connectors.

SATA interface is built with: SATA interface is designed using:

2 conductors to transmit information
2 conductors to retrieve information
Ground cables that are connected between conductors to stop interference

It also comes with an electrical power cable that is used to power an internal drive for storage, which is 5.

SAS explained

SAS is the abbreviation for “serial attached SCSI.” SCSI (commonly called “scuzzy”) stands for “small computer systems interface.” SCSI was the original technology for parallelization used by SAS. SAS was able to replace.

SAS is built in a similar way as SATA:

Two conductors are used to send information
2 conductors are used to receive information
Ground cables that are placed between conductors to minimize interference

The difference in SATA and SAS

Here’s the place where SAS differs. In the case of a SATA cable, the four wires are connected to an identical cable. In the case of a SAS cable, all 4 wires are split into two distinct cables. It’s not a parallel system as each cable houses both an outgoing and incoming wire.

Why do you divide the wires in two cables? In order to connect more devices to each other. By using an SATA cable you will only connect the motherboard to your storage device. It’s possible to connect the expansion devices, but it consumes space in your PC.

With the help of a SAS cable, it is possible to are able to connect your motherboard to the storage drive as well as to another device that comes with SAS connectors.

Here’s what highways appear like in metaphor:

SATA cable Los Angeles to San Francisco
SAS cable Los Angeles to San Francisco or Los Angeles to Las Vegas

You can visit other destinations along the SAS highway.

The reason SATA is superior for storage

If the storage of files is an important aspect of your life it is recommended that you purchase a computer or external hard drive that uses SATA connectivity for data transfer. This is why SATA is the ideal choice in PC-based storage.

Speed of writing and reading

SATA is best used when data is transferred to the storage device. It operates at a slower rate when it moves data from the drive.

That’s why SATA is an ideal technology to include in your computer when you’re trying to store data that you don’t have to use on a daily basis. Therefore, if you’re saving a lot of data on your computer or the external storage device, you should consider buying a computer or drive which is built using SATA components.

Storage capacity

SATA is very big in capacity for storage, which is another reason it’s a wonderful component for your computer and external drives.

Price

SATA hardware is simpler as SAS hardware, which is why it is generally more affordable. That’s why external drives and PCs which use SATA technology can also be more affordable.

What is the reason? SAS is superior for servers and workstations?

SAS is ideal for two uses:

Servers
Workstations

If you’re planning to set up an server to be used by your small or office complex you should consider purchasing servers and hard drives that make use of SAS technology. SAS is also an excellent component to include in your system if you intend to use your computer to perform processing-intensive tasks such as video editing and visual effects creation or animation.

Here’s the reason SAS works great for servers and workstations that are creative.

Read/Write speed

SAS is an all-round more efficient technology than SATA since it can transfer information out of storage as fast as it transfers information into storage. Workstations and servers rely heavily on data transfers therefore it is essential to have equipment that is able to transmit and receive data quickly.

Storage capacity

SAS isn’t equipped with an storage capacity equivalent to SATA but it doesn’t require. Servers make use of a variety of different hard drives, and therefore be able to store the total capacity of all hard drives. The majority of creative professionals have several hard drives, in any case.

Price

SAS Hardware is more complex and, consequently, more expensive. The bright side is that SAS hardware can be more robust than SATA. SATA’s MTBF (mean time between breakdown) for SATA can range from 1.2 up to 1.6 millions of hours. This implies that SATA technology will be running for more than 1 million hours before it has replacing.

Smart technology

SAS is designed with integrated technology that makes it ideal for workstations and servers. Hard drives built using SAS connectors are mounted inside “SCSI enclosures.”

An SCSI enclosure is an item of hardware that assists your hard drive handle the flow of data that is traversing it on the SAS highway. If there’s a problem with the hardware, SCSI enclosure’s software can detect the issue and report the issue.

What is RAID?

The SCSI software makes use of RAID to guard against data loss. If you’re working with data that isn’t saved to a storage device, SCSI ensures that all data is across multiple drives, ensuring that even if one drives fails the data will be on the other.

This method is known as RAID (Redundant array of Independent Disks). It’s possible to implement RAID using SATA technology as well, however, it’s much more effective with SAS technology since SAS connects more circuits. Workstations and servers perform so many transactions of temporary data that RAID-capable technology is essential.

Another benefit of SAS is the ability to allow for multipath input and output (I/O). Because SAS technology typically connects more than one part of circuitry, it is able to redirect data to a second highway in the event that the primary one is not working.