A quick google will answer all your questions... Hush hush, don't be lazy! SATA = Serial ATA IDE (misused) = PATA = Parallel ATA Both are interfaces to HD's, CD/DVD roms,... Theoretically SATA is faster, but both are limited by the physical speed of the HD (platter turning, arm seeking,...)
HD makers will gradually stop mass-producing 4-pin IDE drives. SATA is just nicer - the cables are much neater and easier to organise and give a bit better airflow, easier to plug in and take out, hotswap on many consumer motherboards, eSATA (external sata) is doable with SMART usable, there are no jumpers, some drives have latched secure connectors, delayed spinup. Oh, and supposedly they are faster, but that will only be noticeable when we get cheaper SATA solid state drives (== superspeed RAID!)..
SATA HDD is a bit faster then IDE HDD. But the nice thing about SATA, is that it's currently limited by the HDD speed. But later on, over the years when we will get very good solid state drives, that are way faster then HDD. SATA will shine.
