Question about Sata

[D4RK1C3]

Currently I am running 2 80gig sata HD's in Raid 0, and recently ive been looking into more storage. I would like to buy some larger sata hd's, but i have noticed that some of the larger hd's run on SATA 2 and these are the ones that have a 16meg buffer. I am wondering if there is a requirement to run sata 2 or if i can use it just like I use normal sata. Thanks

[Octave]

If you get an sata drive with NCQ, in order to take advantage of it youll have to have a motherboard that is NCQ capable, however, correct me if im wrong, but i believe they are backwards compatible. So in otherwords, if you dont have a mobo that will support the higher speeds/ncq...the only reason itd be worth it is for purposes of future-proofing :)

[D4RK1C3]

thanks for the info. The specs on my mb says that it supports sata 150 is this the interface that enables ncq?

[Octave]

no, sata 150mb/s just means its SATA1
sata2 is 300mb/s
NCQ is an added bonus, youll have to look and see if it supports it..
whats your mobo?

as a side note,
http://www.serialata.org/specifications.asp
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/SATA
http://www6.tomshardware.com/storage/20030204/index.html

that should catch you up on SATA techknowledgy :)

[D4RK1C3]

My mb is abit nf7-s2
http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/products.php?categories=1&model=204

heres a link to the hd's im looking at.
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-144-358&depa=1

[Octave]

short answer is yes, that drive will work with your mobo
long answer, get a seagate SATA 7200.8 instead
5 yr warrenty, less vibration, less noise....i have two :)

[D4RK1C3]

i would prefer a pair of hd's w/ 16 mb buffers

[AMD T-type]

i would prefer a pair of hd's w/ 16 mb buffers

The performance difference isnt enough to justify the 5year warranty that Seagate offers IMO