Serial ATA (SATA or Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) is a standard that has been defined to connect storage devices or optical drives to a computer. The most common standard that was used beforehand was called ATA or IDE; it has been renamed PATA. The main difference between the two lies in the cables: SATA cables have seven wires, PATA cables have 40 or 80. Another difference is that with SATA, there is one cable for each device, while with PATA, all devices are connected to the same cable. 