Yay... more Confusing releases :)

[Lee H]

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=25682

THERE WAS A NEW S-ATA spec released today, but it is more of a housecleaning step than a huge leap forward. The new SATA 2.5 spec is an aggregation of seven others, all rolled into one, aimed more at people building the devices and systems rather than the end users.
The specs, SATA 1.0a, and the six post SATA 2.0 extensions, are now collectively called SATA 2.5. SATA 1.0a is an minor addition to SATA 1.0 spec, and as with most things with an 'a' extension, it cleans up problems at 1.0. The post 2.0 specs are a little more interesting.

Oh great - now more "standards" normal people will confuse for even faster drives

[Mike Fishcake]

DOES IT LET ME DOWNLOAD PHOTOS OF DOGGIES FASTER?

(seriously though, what does it mean for the end user?)

[Lee H]

[QUOTE=Mike Fishcake]seriously though, what does it mean for the end user?QUOTE]

Port replication - i.e upto 4 drives into 1 Sata port using a replicator board.

Serial ATA cable enhancements - ooooh no more falling off ?

The rest says the improvements are to performance and NCQ capabilities.

[paddlegod]

Monkey,

Do Scan stock locking SATA cables?

[RavenNight]

Western Digital hard drives come with Secure Connect cables which sort of lock... I find insulation tape works great!!!

[Lee H]

Monkey,

Do Scan stock locking SATA cables?

Not at the moment...

I'll badger a few folks though to get some as they could be quite popular

[V0dz]

Would prove popular is my guess as the standard ones are not over clever, and do tend to move real easy.

[aidanjt]

Command Queuing is worthless for desktop use. It might be a good idea for controllers to optionally switch NCQ/TCQ on or off, since performance milage varies greatly between use.
But at least the cable fittings are addressed.