Even if Serial ATA has a theoretical transfer rate of 375MB/s, the real maximum is 300MB/s with today’s SATA interface (due to 10 to 8-bit conversion). Most harddrives can only dream of achieving these transfer speeds, but the exploding development of Solid State Drives are starting to push the limits of the SATA 3Gbps interface. SSDs are commonly reaching transfer speeds up to 250MB/s or higher and if you start connecting multiple of them in RAID configurations you will become limited by the SATA interface.
SATA 6Gbit/s, also known as SATA 3, will be the solution to this since it sports a theoretical maximal bandwidth of 750MB/s, although a practical maximum of 600MB/s. Unfortunately it seems like Intel users will have to wait a bit longer than expected.
According to new information, the first models of Intel’s 5 series of chipset, which among others supports Intel’s new 32nm processors, will not bring SATA 6Gbps. Intel P55 is expected to arrive in third quarter 2009, while P57 is expected to appear in Q1 2010. This perhaps means that Intel will not add SATA 3 support before next year. Something AMD is expected to with the SB820 southbridge in early 2010.
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