In this great hardware industry, it's not uncommon to see standards upgraded time and time again. DDR1 to DDR2, ISA to PCI to AGP to PCI-E, Socket 7 to Socket 775, et cetera. This means constant upgrades to the consumer, and that sometimes leaves them in the dark when they only want a simple upgrade but find out that they need to upgrade their entire system.

Case in point: S-ATA hard drives. S-ATA wasn't commonplace until a couple years ago, so some older PC's don't have any ports but instead rely on the good 'ole IDE connections. Today, it's much easier, and sometimes even cheaper, to go with an S-ATA drive over an IDE. Both types have their benefits, but S-ATA is obviously the current and future. Tighter connections that allow better airflow, and overall better bandwidth.