Not only is SATA faster, but it offers better flexibility. Motherboards now support both SATA and IDE (ATA/PATA/Ultra ATA/whatever) harddrives. But the support for IDE is gradually decreasing. For example, I've seen some new motherboards where it only supports one IDE channel. So that means you can only use one ribbon cable. If you use a media drive that uses ribbon cables, that would take that channel. This would give you no place to put that hard drive in.
SATA can also set up RAID while IDE can't. Oh what else, some SATA drives support Network Command Queuing (NCQ). NCQ takes the list of commands given to it, and then orders it so that the head has to read the least amount of disc to get the info. Plus, the smaller cables will give your computer better airflow.
Manufacturers are starting to "phase out" IDE becuase it's old technology while SATA's the new. IDE isn't really being developed any further while SATA is continually being developed with new features. Going to SATA will give you also more options down the road than IDE will.
