The SATA International Organization, the industry consortium governing Serial ATA interfaces, yesterday released a finalized version of the SATA 3.0 specification, which features 6.0Gbps data transfers and a number of improved features while remaining completely backwards-compatible with existing drives, controllers, connectors, and cables. While current hard disk drives can’t saturate SATA 2.0’s 3Gbps data rate, SSDs can, and the new features are moderately compelling.

SATA launched in 2001, and has been through one prior speed bump, from 1.5Gbps to 3.0Gbps. The IDE-SATA transition and prior bump were both timed to give the industry about three years to adopt the new standard, making for a smooth transition, unlike, for instance, the 4GB file limit on FAT32 file systems, the 4GB memory limit on 32-bit x86 operating systems, or the 640k memory limit and extended/expanded memory misery of the 1980s. This new transition is significantly more urgent than the others, because SSDs are already saturating SATA 2.0.

via SATA 3.0 standard ratified; 6Gbps, isochronous SATA inbound – Ars Technica.