SATA & SATA-II

Storrm · 18 Jan 2008 at 20:27

Hi All,

My mobo says its supporst SATA drives up to 150Mb. Its a Asus P4C800-E Delux purchased a few years ago. I want to upgrade my current drives and buy something that will be compatible with a new rig I'll be buying in the near future. I've been looking at the WD Caviar 500G drives and they seem a very good buy. However, on reading the specs they appear to be SATA-II.

So, the question is - are SATA-II drives backward compatible with SATA? In Other words, will they work with my current mobo (at reduced speeds of course) and still be ok for when I upgrade?

Cheers
M

Will_3rd · 18 Jan 2008 at 20:32

they should come with a jumper that will make them run at 150, thereby being backward compatible

Subterranean · 18 Jan 2008 at 20:43

All the SATA-II drives Ive seen have had a jumper on the back to run as SATA-I. It will probably not even be at reduced speed, since I dont think there are any SATA drives that run faster than the 150MB/s of sata-I standard

Storrm · 18 Jan 2008 at 20:45

Thanks Guys. I found a very usefull thread http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17504457&highlight=SATA-II+SATA that explains everything I needed to know. Apparently they all use the same power and data cables regardless of which generation SATA they are.

helmutcheese · 18 Jan 2008 at 21:42

There is no such thing as a SATA2 HDD.

" The 3.0 Gbit/s specification has been very widely referred to as “Serial ATA II” (“SATA II” or “SATA2“), contrary to the wishes of the The Serial ATA International Organization(SATA-IO) which defines the standard. "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA