Serial ATA International Organization has lately released the Serial ATA Revision 3.0 Specification which enables 6Gb/s link speeds between storage units, disk drives, optical and tape drives and protocol host bus adapters (HBAs).

Compatible with earlier SATA Implementations 1.5 and 3Gb/s, SATA 6Gb/s promises new levels of performance for networks.

The SATA Revision 3.0 Specification enhancements include:

* A new Native Command Queuing (NCQ) streaming command to enable isochronous data transfers for bandwidth-hungry audio and video applications

* An NCQ Management feature that helps optimize performance by enabling host processing and management of outstanding NCQ commands

* Improved power management capabilities

* A small Low Insertion Force (LIF) connector for more compact 1.8-inch storage devices

* A connector designed to accommodate 7mm optical disk drives for thinner and lighter notebooks

* Alignment with the INCITS ATA8-ACS standard