The Serial ATA International Organization aka SATA-IO is now working away on yet another SATA-based technology, a standard called SATA Express which is supposed to allow for transfer speeds of 8 Gb/s and 16 Gb/s.
To reach 16 Gb/s (SATA currently tops 6.0 Gbps), SATA Express will combine the SATA software infrastructure with the well-known and extensively-used PCI-Express interface. According to SATA-IO, the specs it's currently defining will see to the arrival of new, faster storage device and of motherboard connectors that will support both SATA Express and current SATA devices.
"The SATA Express specification provides SSD and hybrid drive manufacturers the advantages of performance and scalability enabled by PCIe 3.0 - which is available now - and the ubiquity of SATA," said Mladen Luksic, SATA-IO president.
The SATA Express specs are expected to be finalized before the end of this year.
Beside SATA Express, the SATA-IO has also announced the SATA µSSD standard for embedded, single-chip storage solutions that connect directly to the motherboard. This one targets mobile devices like tablets.
