Do i need SATA II cables for SATA II performance?

Spudgun · 10 Nov 2006 at 20:03

Or will any SATA cable do?

Many thanks

Spudgun

Lord Alibaski · 10 Nov 2006 at 23:04

If you haven't noticed on SATA cables which are red SATA2 cables are Yellow.

The Yellow ones have a little clip on them but the red ones do not. I have never tried a SATA cable in a SATA2 slot but i doubt it would be good advise to do because they would probably be loose and fall out, because they are missing the clip thats on the SATA2 cable.

Spudgun · 10 Nov 2006 at 23:22

Cheers for your reply. I am currently using the red cables on my SATA II MB and drives and haven't noticed any issues, are there any real differences between the red and yellow cables? On HDtach i am getting burst speeds of 260mb per sec using the red cables

rpstewart · 10 Nov 2006 at 23:25

Spudgun said:
Or will any SATA cable do?

Yes

Lord Alibaski said:
The Yellow ones have a little clip on them but the red ones do not. I have never tried a SATA cable in a SATA2 slot but i doubt it would be good advise to do because they would probably be loose and fall out, because they are missing the clip thats on the SATA2 cable.

There's no physical difference between a SATA1 socket and a SATA2 one. The clips you're referring to are just to help the cable stay in the socket in a similar way to the WD SecureConnect cables, they're nothing to do with the SATA2 standard.

Indy500 · 10 Nov 2006 at 23:25

Colour doesnt matter.

As for SATA1 cables, the only difference will be burst speed limited to 150mb\s as opposed to 300mb\s with SATA2.

rpstewart · 10 Nov 2006 at 23:36

sr4470 said:
As for SATA1 cables, the only difference will be burst speed limited to 150mb\s as opposed to 300mb\s with SATA2.

The burst speed is determined by the drive and/or controller, not the cable.

Indy500 · 10 Nov 2006 at 23:43

rpstewart said:
The burst speed is determined by the drive and/or controller, not the cable.

I was under the impression older cables didn't handle 300mb\s.

lay-z-boy · 11 Nov 2006 at 01:26

sr4470 said:
I was under the impression older cables didn't handle 300mb\s.

How would they not be able to handle that?

snowdog · 11 Nov 2006 at 22:46

sr4470 said:
I was under the impression older cables didn't handle 300mb\s.

Im using 3 sata cables, all from pre-sata 2 periods, and running sataII on 2 of them w/o probs, burst on my raid 0 array was 386mb, wich means at least one of the cables did more than 150 mb...

Colour doesnt matter, all sata cables can do 300 or 150 mb, the differences like in clips are only for convinience or looks, you wont see any difference in speed between cables...

smids · 12 Nov 2006 at 00:18

Does anyone read my sticky? Top of the HDU forum - SATA-II explained...I'm sure it's all there.

SATA1 cables are EXACTLY the same as SATA-II.

If you haven't noticed on SATA cables which are red SATA2 cables are Yellow.

The Yellow ones have a little clip on them but the red ones do not. I have never tried a SATA cable in a SATA2 slot but i doubt it would be good advise to do because they would probably be loose and fall out, because they are missing the clip thats on the SATA2 cable.

Please, do check information first

.

Having said that, I probably need to add in some info on eSATA which causes some confusion.