As I told you earlier today, Serial ATA is gaining momentum these days. Even though most of Serial ATA HDDs are now acquired by enthusiasts, I am nearly sure that very soon most of PC-users will choose to get Serial ATA instead of Parallel ATA simply because it is so much advertised now. Furthermore, the component infrastructure supporting Serial ATA-150 is growing quickly, with many major PC and enterprise manufacturers developing Serial ATA-150-compatible chipsets, mainboards, backplanes, host adaptors and storage system enclosures.

According to IDC, Serial ATA-150 will replace Parallel ATA in most new PCs within the next two years. They estimate that in the enterprise storage market, Parallel ATA hard disk drives currently represent about 10% of the overall segment and Serial ATA-150, replacing Parallel ATA, will grow to nearly 40% of drives consumed within the enterprise storage market in 2006.

Here is another reason to choose newer Serial ATA-150 instead of slightly outdated Parallel ATA solution from WD.

Western Digital today introduced its WD Caviar Special Edition Serial ATA-150 hard disk drive, the world's largest 7200rpm Serial ATA-150 hard drive. Carrying on the heritage of WD Caviar SE hard drives as industry-leading performers, these new Serial ATA-150-equipped hard drives feature capacities as large as 250GB, an 8MB buffer and three-year warranty, to fill acute demand in market segments such as high-end PC, workstation and entry-level servers.

WD also introduced its robust SecureConnect Serial ATA-150 cable technology, which is designed to solve a weakness of first-generation Serial ATA-150 hard drives and cables by strengthening the drive-cable connection by more than 5 times, while ensuring the hard drive maintains backward compatibility with legacy Serial ATA-150 cables and backplanes. This strengthening of the drive-cable connection is intended to eliminate Serial ATA-150 connector breakage as well as reduce the number of related product returns to hard disk drive makers and systems manufacturers. Also featured on the new WD Caviar SE Serial ATA-150 hard drives is Western Digital's FlexPower technology that accepts a power connection from either the traditional EIDE power connectors - found in virtually all of today's desktop systems - or other currently shipping Serial ATA-150 power supplies.

WD Caviar SE Serial ATA-150 hard drives are available in capacities of 120, 160, 200 and 250GB and feature 8MB cache buffer, 7200rpm, SecureConnect, FlexPower and three-year warranty. No other technical details are known at this point.

Western Digital will be shipping Serial ATA-150 -equipped WD Caviar SE hard drives featuring SecureConnect and FlexPower through its distribution network in June. The company's major OEM customers are currently qualifying the products. SecureConnect cables with FlexPower will be available through Western Digital's distribution network beginning in July.