Your vaunted 10k Raptor IS a PATA with a converter chip:
http://www6.tomshardware.com/storage/20030501/wd360-05.html
"...We thus know one thing for sure, namely that the WD360 is not a new
Serial ATA development, but a product that was originally developed on
the basis of an UltraATA interface. And that also means that WD could
follow up with a WD360 and UltraATA/100 interface at any time...."
I imagine (but can't prove) that the onboard cache is parallel. I also
imagine that there are other good reasons to have a parallel data path
in the drive electronics. Thus I'm not surprised that a proven
parallel-serial bridge chip is used.
It would be interesting to know if there is anything different on a
"native SATA" drive vs. an "apparent PATA-SATA kludge." What we don't
know is, how much of the PATA interface was left off then the SATA
bridge chip was tacked on this particular drive. It's educated
speculation, but speculation nonetheless that a PATA interface will
ever be available on this product. I counterspeculate that the reuse
of some of the PATA electronics represented good cost savings because
the STR bottleneck is upstream anyway. For a PATA version to be
marketed, the overall benefit would have to exceed the cost of
tooling. It could very well be that they make a higher margin on the
SATA drives, so they might be betting on pushing the market in that
direction by limiting the supply of the lower margin PATA (again, my
speculation only).
%mod%
