Difference between Serial ATA Drive and Solid State Drive

Serial SATA is the same thing as a SSD. Meaning an SSD is still a Serial SATA drive. It means the type of interface it has. Are you wondering what the difference is between a mechanical HDD and SSD? If so, a SSD will be more efficient, run cooler and 100% silent, ALOT more durable and of course the performance is unbeliavable. If you want a good web site for learning about SSD's, go to www.the ssdreview.com. They talk all SSD's. If I were in your shoes, I would buy a Samung 830 SSD and never look back. It will allow you to take advantage of the 6Gbps speed that the new MBP's have.

Different technology. SSD has no moving parts, it is just memory. Serial ATA standard hard drive has moving parts, spinning disk. Of couse the differences are more than that. A Google search for solid state vs serial ata hard drive will yield many explanations. Here is one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive

Serial ATA is an electrical connection/data transfer standard so does not define the drive type. I believe you are asking the difference between a conventional hard disk drive and the SSD.

The conventional hard drive has moving parts: the spinning metal platter and the "read/write" arm. The read/write arm move back and forth recording data on to a magnetic coating on the platter.

A solid state drive has no moving parts. Data is stored on memory devices similar to the RAM sticks in the computer, but designed to maintain the information when the computer is powered off.

The solid state memory devices are still relative new technology for consumers so a modest capacity SSD drive will still cost more thatn a large capacity hard drive. I'm sure the price of SSDs will drop and their capacities will increase with time.

The theoretical advantages of SSDs are speed--they read and write data much faster than can conventional hard drives, and the lack of moving pats, which should make then more durable.

Like Allan Jones and I both stated, they are both SATA. Both types use the SATA type interface.