SATA Optical Drives Coming in Force
DigiTimes reports that industry sources are expecting SATA to replace standard IDE as the format for optical disk drives in 2007. SATA has been extremely popular the last few years as the connection of choice for the vast majority of consumer hard drives. However, cases which were cleaned up through the use of the smaller cable were still tainted by the need to use IDE optical drives as there were only a small handful of SATA versions available. Fortunately, it appears as though the days of having a full SATA-equipped system with no bulky ribbon cables are coming soon.
SATA has been adopted for several DVD-burner models, such as the Sony AW-Q160S, Asustek DRW-1814BLT and DVD-E616A3T, the sources indicated. Samsung, Pioneer and the Taiwan-based Lite-On IT and BenQ will launch SATA DVD burners this quarter, the sources noted.
