[news] - SATA Alternative: FATA

[Handruin]

So, would the resulting SAN be known as a FATA Storage Subsystem, or FATASS?

Link Source

 

[Mercutio]

Uh. Yeah. I'll be here growing old while that gets implemented on mainstream system boards.

Was that sarcastic enough?

 

[BooST]

Was that sarcastic enough?

Nope... Not nearly enough.

What the hell?? 1/2 the cost per megabyte? Fiber = cheaper, never seen that one before[/quote]

 

[sechs]

Half the cost per megabyte... three times the cost per gigbyte.

 

[Mercutio]

Yes, but as with all things fibre, you won't even get a kiss before you bend over and pay for the cabling.

 

[Onomatopoeic]

I questioned the non-use of fibre during the beginnings of SATA, and several times since -- including recently around here in some discussion thread.

It would make generally make sense to have totally abandoned copper in favour of a fibre optic connection for data. You would have had plenty of speed for future SATA channels without the electronic headaches. What generally stopped this idea -- if it was ever seriously considered -- would have been the few $ in extra cost over using some form of copper-based serial solution.

Still, multi-mode optical transceivers along with some form of basic and cheap point-to-point connector solution and inexpensive multi-mode fibre optic cable could have been done relatively cheaply even 3 years ago. fibre optic technology is in wide usage.

 

[sechs]

To be honest, that makes a bit a of sense. If my $100 motherboard can have optical in-outs for its crudy built-in sound, why can't my harddrive use an optical link?

 

[ddrueding]

...and think of all the case modding possibilities! :eekers:

 

[Explorer]

...and think of all the case modding possibilities! :eekers:

With the exception of the quasi-ugly optical cable (your pick: orange or grey), it wouldn't look any different than what you have now.

 

[Explorer]

To be honest, that makes a bit a of sense. If my $100 motherboard can have optical in-outs for its crudy built-in sound, why can't my harddrive use an optical link?

My take on throwing out copper wire for fibre -- with the newfangled serialised ATA channel -- was as much about the little guy (i.e. -- the consumer) as it was The Enterprise.

10 or 12 years from now we could have a mother&@^#%$ of a "solid state" mass storage device that could be blindingly fast compared to SATA hard drives as we now know them. If we started off with a standard Fibre-ATA channel that could be ramped up aggressively in throughput, we could transition seamlessly from rotating electro-mechanical hard drive storage devices to pie-in-the-sky hyperstorage devices if and when they appear.