Editing SATA (section)

=== SATA and SCSI ===
Parallel [[SCSI]] uses a more complex bus than SATA, usually resulting in higher manufacturing costs. SCSI buses also allow connection of several drives on one shared channel, whereas SATA allows one drive per channel, unless using a port multiplier. Serial Attached SCSI uses the same physical interconnects as SATA, and most SAS HBAs also support 3 and 6&nbsp;Gbit/s SATA devices (an HBA requires support for ''Serial ATA Tunneling Protocol'').

SATA 3&nbsp;Gbit/s theoretically offers a maximum bandwidth of 300&nbsp;MB/s per device, which is only slightly lower than the rated speed for SCSI Ultra 320 with a maximum of 320&nbsp;MB/s total for all devices on a bus.<ref>Ultra-640 is specified, but devices do not exist</ref> SCSI drives provide greater sustained throughput than multiple SATA drives connected via a simple (i.e., command-based) [[port multiplier]] because of disconnect-reconnect and aggregating performance.<ref>FIS-based switching is comparable to SCSI's tagged command queueing</ref> In general, SATA devices link compatibly to SAS enclosures and adapters, whereas SCSI devices cannot be directly connected to a SATA bus.

SCSI, SAS{{Citation needed|date=January 2024}}, and fibre-channel (FC) drives are more expensive than SATA, so they are used in [[server (computing)|server]]s and [[disk array]]s where the better performance justifies the additional cost. Inexpensive ATA and SATA drives evolved in the [[home computer|home-computer]] market, hence there is a view that they are less reliable. As those two worlds overlapped, the subject of reliability [[Hard disk drive#Integrity and failure|became somewhat controversial]]. Note that, in general, the failure rate of a disk drive is related to the quality of its heads, platters and supporting manufacturing processes, not to its interface.

Use of serial ATA in the business market increased from 22% in 2006 to 28% in 2008.<ref name="rev30" />