HDD novice requiring quick help!

lukext · 19 May 2008 at 08:43

Hi

Just wanted to check that the samsung F1 range (750GB and 500GB versions specifically) supports sata 1. It specifies sata two but I assume they will just have jumpers on them to switch to 1.5GBps mode???

Many thanks

rpstewart · 19 May 2008 at 10:00

The Samsungs don't have jumpers, you need to use a software tool to force the interface speed down to SATA150. Unfortunately that only works when the drive is connected to a SATA300 capable controller (or one which can at least auto negotiate the speed).

kylew · 19 May 2008 at 14:30

rpstewart said:
The Samsungs don't have jumpers, you need to use a software tool to force the interface speed down to SATA150. Unfortunately that only works when the drive is connected to a SATA300 capable controller (or one which can at least auto negotiate the speed).

This is something I've been wondering about, are the samsungs SATA 3GB out of the box? I remember reading about some drives that you had to enable the faster SATA interface by using a HDD software tool, is it the other way around now? You need to use a software tool to use them on older connections?

rpstewart · 19 May 2008 at 14:38

The whole using a software tool to set the interface speed is something that really bugs me. I have a bunch of Hitachi T7K250s which arrived as SATA150 and you needed to use the Drive Feature Tool to kick them to SATA300 - dead easy and worked on anything.

But since the 7K500s Hitachi and now Samsung ship everything as SATA300 by default and you use the tool to limit them to SATA150. Now how stupid is that? If you need them to run at SATA150 then you can't because the controller won't recognise the drive (if it did you wouldn't need to use the tool) so you need to use a second machine which not everyone has access to.