SATA stands for serial advanced technology attachment which was the replacement for the previous interface parallel ATA (PATA). All these technologies are developed by the Serial ATA International Organization. SATA interfaces are significantly faster than the PATA interface which is attributed to the increased data rate on the serial paired lines. SATA has backward compatibility with the ATA/ATAPI command set that was previously used in PATA.
The SATA technology is implemented in two key areas which are in the connectors and the SATA cable. The SATA connectors can be found on compatible motherboards and hard drives. Some people have confused SATA for a storage drive which it isn't. Rather, a SATA Hard Drive is simply a storage drive with SATA connectors.
