In the Vehicle Hard Disk Players and Vehicle Hard Disk Video Recorders, two kinds of disk are available, namely, SATA and PATA. Next, we will briefly explain the difference between the two.
PATA stands for parallel ATA. Parallel ATA drives have a long history, from ATA33/66 to ATA100/133 and now we have ATA150.
SATA stands for Serial ATA. The writing speed of ATA100 is 65MB/s, but the speed of the first generation of SATA is 150MB/s, and the second generation reaches 300MB/s. SATA is meant to replace PATA, just like DDR and SDRAM.
The port of hard disk links the disk and the host, transmission data between the disk cache and the memory of the host, therefore, the quality of the port has a direct impact on the speed and function of the whole system. In general, we have two kinds of disc port, IDE and SATA. The former one is usually applied in the players and recorders of the early stage. SATA is newly emerged, enjoys great popularity, with a promising future in the line of vehicle products.
IDE:
IDE stands for “integrated Drive Electronics”, which integrate the hard disk controller and the body of the disk. In this way, it reduces the number and the length of the cable of the disc, enhanced the credibility of data transmission, making the producing of the disk easier, since the manufacturers don't have to worry about whether their own disk is compatible with the controller manufactured by other companies. In addition, it makes the installation of the disk more convenient for the customers. IDE disc is irreplaceable since IDE port keeps upgrading itself, with the function of it always improving; besides, it has a high quality-value ratio. IDE represents a genre of hard disk, however, in actual application, people are more accustomed to calling it ATA-1, the firs generation of IDE, but it has been culled as the development the port technology. Lots of other types of port emerged afterwards, such as ATA, Ultra, DMA, Ultra DMA, and they all belong to IDE disk.
SATA:
The hard disk that uses SATA port is also called SATA disk, which the trend of the disk in vehicle electronic products. In 2001, the Serial ATA commission, constituted of Intel, APT, Dell, IBM, Seagate, Maxtor, set the standard for Serial ATA 1.0. In 2002, although the SATA disk related products had not been publicly listed, the Serial ATA Commission has set the standard for Serial ATA 2.0. Serial ATA adopts serial data link mode, and Serial ATA bus adopts embedded clock signal, which possess more powerful capability of error correction.
Compared with the previous ones, its main difference is that it can examine the transmission order, besides the data. It will correct itself if any error is detected, which, to a large degree, improves the credibility of data transmission. In addition, the structure of SATA port is simple, and it supports hot-swap as well.
SATA port is a totally different type of disk port. Compared with PATA, SATA possesses many advantages. On one hand, SATA transfers data in a consecutive serial mode, one piece of data at a time, thus, it reduces the number of the pin of the SATA port and also the number of the linking cables, as a result, the effectiveness will be improved. In fact, Serial ATA can work with only 4 pins, and they are applied in linking cables, linking ground wire, transmission data, and receiving data. Besides, this structure minimizes the consumption of the system and makes it less complicated. On the other hand, Serial ATA has a higher initial point, with much potentiality.
The data transmission speed of Serial ATA 1.0 can reach up to 150MB/s, which is even higher than the newest edition of PATA, ATA/133, which can transfer data at a speed of merely 133MB/s. Furthermore, Serial ATA 2.0 will reach up to 300MB/s, and finally SATA can transfer data at a speed of 600MB/s.
Technically, how much faster is SATA than PATA?
Since SATA are meant to replace PATA, then what are SATA's advantages, comparing with PATA? Comes first is speed, as we mentioned above, the second generation of SATA can transfer data at 300MB/s, and third one can reach as high as 600 MB/s. Therefore, in light of speed, SATA is way advanced than PATA. What's more, the transmission mode of SATA is much better than IDE's. SATA adopts single-channel transmission mode while IDE adopts multi-channel transmission code. Literally, some people may think that, multi-channel must be faster than single-channel, but, it's not the truth.
The reason is that SATA doesn't have a limit over its speed frequency as IDE does. The transmission line's transmission speed of SATA is 30 times faster than that of IDE. IDE has to transfer 16 signals at a time, and if the signals don't reach in time or there is a delay, there will be data errors. As a result, the transmission speed of the bit stream will have to slow down to correct the errors. SATA transfers bit data one at a time and the transmission speed of the bit stream is much faster. Furthermore, another improvement of SATA is that its data is consecutive, with smaller size and better heat dissipation and easier disk connection. Compared with IDE, SATA is of much lower consumption rate, which is an absolute advantage for vehicle products, together with its exclusive CRC technology, making the data transmission much safer.
According to this technological state, Yusong products select its hard disk port in this way: IDE ports for vehicle mp4 players, vehicle mp5 adopt dual port, that is, both of IDE and SATA are applied. All of the hard disk recorders adopt SATA port.
