WD®, a Western Digital (NASDAQ: WDC) company, and world  leader in storage solutions, will be demonstrating the first PCI Express hard  drives at Computex Taipei, June 3-4, 2014. Enabled with key technology partners,  WD’s prototype introduces the new
SATA Express interface, a form of PCI Express  technology, which is offered on recently launched Intel® series-9 chipset  motherboard platforms. The SATA Express interface provides a roadmap for faster  speeds, lower power consumption and increased flexibility for future OEM  designs.  

  The road to the world’s first  demonstration of SATA Express has been in development for almost 3 years. In  2011, SATA-IO, the group responsible for charting the future of SATA, announced  that it was developing a new specification that would fundamentally change the  core technology behind SATA by melding it with the more advanced PCI Express  computer interface. In 2013, the SATA Express specification was announced; and  just one year later, WD and selected partners have realized a prototype of what  is expected to be the next generation of storage technology. 

By moving to PCI Express, the industry  marries the world’s most popular storage bus with the world’s most popular  computer bus. This union provides a solid growth path to innovate new capability,  while preserving the ability to plug legacy SATA drives into new SATA Express based  computers. In another innovation, SATA Express allows cable connections with  lower costs, by removing the PCI Express Sync line via SRIS (Separate RefClock  with Independent SSC), which lowers the overall cable cost.

“WD has been at the forefront of SATA  technology, and we see a vibrant growth path for adoption of the future SATA  Express Roadmap,” said Matt Rutledge, senior vice president, storage technology,  WD. “SATA will remain a standard for many years in many applications, and for  customers who want to discuss a future beyond vanilla SATA, WD is ready to plan  the future with them.”

The SATA Express interface will be  demonstrated in systems from WD’s key partners at Computex to show the operational  interface with their new platforms. This new SATA Express infrastructure allows  customers to work with SSDs, SSHDs, and HDDs on a single common bus. 

WD’s demonstration prototype leverages standard AHCI drivers and is  compatible with all known, currently supported client operating system  releases.

“SATA Express is a breakthrough interface  for internal storage. As a pioneer and leading provider of SATA Express host  solutions, ASUS is glad to see exciting new devices demonstrated in the market.  The SRIS-enabled SATA Express technology has been carefully engineered in  selected ASUS 9 Series motherboards for great compatibility with SATA Express  devices. The complete ASUS SATA Express solution together with the WD hard  drive will be showcased at the ASUS booth M0410,”  said Joe Hsieh, Corporate Vice President and General Manager of ASUS  Motherboard Business Unit and Desktop Business Unit.

“With the launch of the Intel 9 series  chipset, GIGABYTE is excited to bring several new motherboards to the market  that supports the very latest SATA Express technology,” commented Colin Brix,  Director of Marketing of GIGABYTE Motherboard Business Unit. “As an industry  leader in the storage space, WD is one of the first vendors to demonstrate SATA  Express devices, and GIGABYTE is thrilled to be able to demo one of their  latest drives at Computex so we can show our customers just how much faster PCI  Express based SATA Express is than previous generations.”