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Gigabit ethernet only has 1Gbps (125MBps), whereas SATA II has up to three times that rate.

Is it possible to achieve the rate of three times Gigabit ethernet connection which is SATA II speeds, between home network storage and the laptops and desktops with SATA II hard drives? If so, how?

Or, is the limitation of a gigabit ethernet port on the laptops the limitng factor, making 1000Gbps the fastest practical transfer speed possible? (practical, meaning that without taking apart the laptop and doing physical modifications like branching a SATA II transfer cable, etc.)

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I just realized -- wouldn't a USB 3.0 cable do the trick? Since USB 3.0 can reach up to 675MBps?

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    What's your budget? Do you have control over both ends? It's hard to figure out what the scope of this question is. (Related question)
    – David Schwartz
    Jun 9, 2012 at 1:25
  • I have control over both ends. All of it is in my room, the modem, the router, the laptops. | My budget isn't particularly important here because the question is for information so I can learn about this.
    – superuser
    Jun 9, 2012 at 1:46
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    @techaddict en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISCSI, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibre_Channel
    – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007
    Jun 9, 2012 at 1:49
  • @techie007: 20GFC = 5100MBps!!!! whoa! Too bad there are no ports on my computer to accept fibre optics!
    – superuser
    Jun 9, 2012 at 1:51
  • Since you claim "My budget isn't particularly important here" then you have the money to go buy a fiber channel card. Heck go buy 4 of them and bond them together. ;) That's why we're not keen on hypothetical questions here.
    – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007
    Jun 9, 2012 at 1:56

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Laptop will be your limiting factor. On desktops, you could do things like trunking several 1Gbps links together, or using 10Gbps network cards. You cannot do that with laptop, and besides, when you're getting into these speeds, other factors start to be important (PCIe throughput, etc.).

In high-performance SANs, using RAID SAN boxes + multiple 10Gbps copper or fiber optic links, you can get better throughput than 3Gbps... These are all out of the realm of home networking.

Good luck getting better than 300-500 MBbps throughput for SAN/NAS access, using home-grade network equipment and hard disks.

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  • This is very helpful. Thank you. And 300MBps is still extremely fast. I can't imagine ever even using all that speed.
    – superuser
    Jun 9, 2012 at 1:48
  • What about laptop server
    – Pacerier
    Nov 21, 2017 at 9:24
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10Gbps Ethernet hardware exists, so you could get your speed by buying that. But you can't turn SATA into a LAN technology. (At least, not unless you're a computer engineer with the skills to design a custom network card.)

The tradeoff SATA makes for its higher speed is a much shorter cable length limit: 1 meter, as opposed to Ethernet's 100 meters (assuming cat5e cable). 1 meter is practical for devices within a PC, but not for connecting different PCs together in most cases.

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    SATA over Ethernet do exist: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATA_over_Ethernet
    – haimg
    Jun 9, 2012 at 1:38
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    But there's no such thing as Ethernet over ATA, which is what the question is asking about.
    – Wyzard
    Jun 9, 2012 at 1:39
  • Surely you could use a shorter Ethernet cable if you so wish to?
    – Pacerier
    Nov 21, 2017 at 9:25
  • @Pacerier, yes, you can use a short Ethernet cable. The point is that you can't have a long SATA cable.
    – Wyzard
    Nov 21, 2017 at 12:56

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