Serial Advanced Technology Attachment which is also known as SATA is a computer device that is used to connect adapters to devices into which huge amount of information can be stored, for example- hard drives and optical drives. ATA has been replaced with SATA which works at higher speed but used low-level instructions like the former. It uses four conductors in contrast to the 16 conductors used by ATA. SATA has the following advantages: use of cable wires are reduced which also reduces the cost and information is transferred more efficiently. Modern laptops use the host adapter of SATA. It is also used in the motherboards of desktop computers.

How to Install SATA Hard drives:

SATA hard drives are quite easy to install. Settings of jumpers or terminators are not necessary for roper operation. The drive can be forced into the SATA 150MB/s by using the jumper block near the connector on 300MB/s. Each hard drive has their own cable which connects to the host adapter or on the SATA port of the desktop motherboard. In contrast to PATA master-slave relationship does not exist. SATA drive and PATA drive can be used simultaneously provided both are supported in the system. Without removing the PATA disk drives, SATA compatibility can be easily added to the system.

One must check the computer system to see whether the motherboard supports SATA and should also locate the connector. IF there is no SATA connector, a host adapter needs to be purchased. It should be compatible with the system and should be installed.

Precautions: Disk drives should be handled carefully as they are fragile. One should hold the drives only by its edges and should be kept in a protective container in order to minimize damage. Power of the system should be turned off during installation. Disassembling of the drive voids the warranty.

Installing the Drive: The cable of the SATA connector should be attached to the host adapter. Then the interface and cables should be attached to the drive. Fix the drive using screws on each side. In the bottom-mounting holes screws should be inserted not more than 0.20 inches and on the side-mounting holes screws should not be inserted more than 0.14 inches. Over tightening of the screws may lead to damage of the drive.

Detection of the new drive might be automatically done by the computer system when it is restarted. If it does not detect the new drive, the following steps should be taken.

When the computer restarts, instruct the system setup program to detect the new drive automatically. Save and exit from the setup. The system should recognize the new drive when it restarts. Check about SATA Internal Hard Drive.