PATA and SATA are two transmission protocols used to connect hard drives to motherboards. PATA uses a master/slave relationship and requires jumper configuration, while SATA is plug-and-play and has dedicated interfaces for each drive. PATA is still used in older systems, but SATA is faster and more efficient. Consumers should check their motherboard manual before purchasing a hard drive.
Master/slave technology is part of the legacy Parallel ATA (PATA) standard. ATA stands for Advanced Technology Attachment and comes in a newer serial version known as Serial ATA or SATA. The newer standard has many advantages over the PATA setup, but PATA is still widely used in older systems.
The master/slave relationship is part of a transmission protocol that links the communication between a hard drive and the motherboard to which it is connected. In this type of configuration, a wide flat parallel cable runs from an interface on the motherboard to the hard drives. Each parallel cable has two female ports to accommodate up to two drives. The primary port connects to the master unit, the secondary port to a slave unit. The primary drive is the boot drive.
When installing two PATA drives on a single parallel cable, each drive must be configured with a jumper wire to designate it as a primary or secondary, master or slave drive. Failure to set the jumpers will prevent the system from correctly recognizing the drives. The parallel cable itself might also be labeled for specific master and slave ports. Information about these designations in a system can be found in the motherboard BIOS menus.
While the initial versions of SATA were comparable in speed to advanced versions of PATA, the serial cable allowed them to quickly break through the speed barrier. Unlike parallel cables, serial cables are narrow and unobtrusive, allowing for better airflow inside the system case. SATA also uses a dedicated interface and cable for each drive, eliminating PATA’s two-in-one master/slave standard. SATA drives do not need to be configured via jumpers and are plug-and-play, unlike PATA drives.
Before purchasing a hard drive, people should make sure to check whether the interface is PATA or SATA. Consumers should note that PATA drives can be found inexpensively and can be a good choice for an external storage drive, even if the system drives are SATA. Systems can also generally handle a mix of internal SATA and PATA drives, although this wouldn’t be ideal for a RAID array, as the PATA drive would slow it down. Computer users should check their motherboard manual for specific information on the features and interfaces available on their system.
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