Hard disk drives are accessed over one of a number of bus types, including parallel ATA (PATA, also called IDE or EIDE), Serial ATA (SATA), SCSI, Serial Attached SCSI (SAS), and Fibre Channel. Bridge circuitry is sometimes used to connect hard disk drives to buses that they cannot communicate with natively, such as IEEE 1394 and USB.

Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA, IPA: /ˈseɪtə/, /ˈsætə/ or /ˈsɑːtə/) is a computer bus primarily designed for transfer of data between the motherboard and mass storage devices, such as hard disk drives and optical drives, inside a computer.

The main advantages over the older parallel ATA interface are faster data transfer, ability to remove or add devices while operating (hot swapping) (only when the operating system supports it), thinner cables that let air cooling work more efficiently, and more reliable operation.

It was designed as a successor to the Advanced Technology Attachment standard (ATA), and is expected to eventually replace the older technology (retroactively renamed Parallel ATA or PATA). Serial ATA adapters and devices communicate over a high-speed serial cable.