One of the reasons for this is the increased adoption by big global players like Dell and HP. Unfortunately these Serial ATA drives will be up to 20-30% more expensive than the models they will replace.
Many international OEM/ODM clients have requested for use of SATA in place of ATAPI for new DVD-ROM drive and/or DVD burner models sent for product certification over the past four months, the sources pointed out. As a result, the total shipment volume of SATA DVD-ROM drives and DVD burners is likely to exceed that of ATAPI models in the second half of the year, the sources indicated.
The cost structure and technological requirements for SATA is not significantly higher than those for ATAPI, the sources noted. In addition, recent chipsets from Intel have only offered SATA support requiring motherboard makers to use additional chips to support ATAPI/IDE on their motherboards, the sources explained.