A Quick Look at SATA Disk Performance

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the performance and reliability of SATA drives compared to PATA drives in multi-terabyte database servers, highlighting SATA's advantages in speed, reliability, and airflow.

Contribution

It provides empirical performance and reliability data on SATA drives in server environments, demonstrating their benefits over traditional PATA drives.

Findings

SATA drives are faster than PATA drives.

SATA connectors are more reliable and easier to manage.

SATA drives improve airflow and reduce wiring issues.

Abstract

We have been investigating the use of low-cost, commodity components for multi-terabyte SQL Server databases. Dubbed storage bricks, these servers are white box PCs containing the largest ATA drives, value-priced AMD or Intel processors, and inexpensive ECC memory. One issue has been the wiring mess, air flow problems, length restrictions, and connector failures created by seven or more parallel ATA (PATA) ribbon cables and drives in]a tower or 3U rack-mount chassis. Large capacity Serial ATA (SATA) drives have recently become widely available for the PC environment at a reasonable price. In addition to being faster, the SATA connectors seem more reliable, have a more reasonable length restriction (1m) and allow better airflow. We tested two drive brands along with two RAID controllers to evaluate SATA drive performance and reliablility. This paper documents our results so far.