SATA compatibility question

[BushidoPride]

Sorry if this is really noobish, but I can't find an answer to this anywhere...

I have an MSI K8N Neo Platinum mobo (http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?model=K8N_Neo2_Platinum&class=mb)

It does have SATA support, but since it's an older mobo I don't know if it's compatible with newer SATA drives.

I want to get Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD2500KS 250GB SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive and I don't know if it will be compatible.


Any ideas?


Thanks a lot!

 

[drizzt81]

most likely it will work. if you are having problems you can set the jumper to force SATA150 operation:

http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc...F9zZWFyY2hfdGV4dD1qdW1wZXI*&p_li=&p_topview=1

 

[BushidoPride]

That's awesome, thanks. Obviously I'm taking speed hit right? Going from 3 gigs to 150 megs?

 

[w1retap]

I have that board.. except the 754 version. A SATA2 drive will work with the board, but at SATA speeds. (1.5gb/sec vs 3.0gb/sec) Its all reverse compatible just like USB2.0 is with a USB1 port.. just the speed changes. I tried a SATA2 drive in my 754 rig, and I didn't have to set up any jumpers. It did everything automatically.

 

[drizzt81]

That's awesome, thanks. Obviously I'm taking speed hit right? Going from 3 gigs to 150 megs?

No, you are going from 3Gbps signalling to 1.5Gbps signalling (~300 MBps to 150 MBps). given that there are no consumer harddrives that come even close to maxing out the 150MBps on sustained reads or writes, the only difference is the speed at which cached data is transferred. The real-world performance difference is likely small enough to fall within the margin of error when trying to measure it.

Bottom line: the difference is so miniscule that it really does not matter.

 

[BushidoPride]

Does it make sence going with a cheaper drive then? You pay extra for that 3GPS yet you don't actually use it?

 

[Farva]

its not gonna hurt, besides, many drives being made today are sata2 anyway.

 

[w1retap]

Here's a benchmark graph.. as you can see, there isn't a huge difference, but you might notice a very slight improvement with SATA2, but probably not.

Higher score is better. The 250gb drive is SATA2, and the 300gb drive is SATA.

BUT, where you will see a pretty big advantage in speed with the SATA2 drive is if you are copying or moving files ON that drive itself only. Its significantly faster than regular SATA.