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SATA Speeds

People often ask about the speed of SATA. It’s handy to know these speeds when comparing SATA devices like hard drives and SSDs.

First a little background information.  Here is the definition of SATA with some older acronyms thrown in for comparison.

  • SATA – Serial Advanced Technology Attachment
  • PATA – Parallel Advanced Technology Attachment
  • ATA – Advanced Technology Attachment

Perhaps you remember these older hard drive attachments methods.  If so, you can see where SATA got it’s name.

There have been several revisions of SATA.  Here are the major revisions and their speeds:

  • SATA 1.0 = 1.5 Gbps
  • SATA 2.0 = 3 Gbps
  • SATA 3.0 = 6 Gbps
  • SATA 3.1 = 6 Gbps
  • SATA 3.2 = 6 Gbps

Gbps = Gigabits per second

For more about SATA, read Wikipedia.

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USB Speeds

Here are current USB speeds for easy comparison.

USB SPEEDS

Speeds are theoretical under ideal conditions.  Real-world speeds vary and are usually slightly less than advertised..

  • USB 1.0   12Mbps or 1.5 MBps
  • USB 2.0   480 Mbps or 60 MBps
  • USB 3.0   5Gbps or 625 MBps
  • USB 3.1   10Gbps or 1.25 GBps
  • USB 3.2    20 Gbps or 2.5GBps

Acronym and Definitions

  • Mbps = Mega bits per second
  • MBps = Mega BYTES per second
  • Gbps = Giga bits per second
  • GBps = Gig BYTES per second
  • One byte = eight bits (1Byte = 8bits)
  • Kilo = Thousand
  • Mega = Million
  • Giga = Billion
  • Tera = Trillion