Are all S-ATA back compatible?

[SONYFX]

There seems to be many different versions of SATA, how do I know if it's compatible with my system?

 

[acegazda]

there is only SATA and SATA II, not that complicated... both are backwards compatible.
You can use SATA hdd's with an SATA II board and vise versa.

EDIT: If you use SATA II on an SATA MoBo the drive will run at the slower speed. If you use SATA on an SATA II MoBo, then the drive will still run at the slower speed.

 

[Zepper]

Most drives will have a jumper to select between SATA-150 and SATA-300. Some Hitachis have software setup so you have to get the setting utility from their web site if you didn't get a retail unit. They will usually come from the factory set to SATA-150 for widest compatibility if they are capable of SATA-300, so you will have to bump it up if you have a SATA-300 capable machine.

.bh.

 

[Aluvus]

All SATA drives are compatible with all SATA motherboards. No worries.

 

[fire400]

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

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: fire400
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SATA

Soon, there will be no need for these Forums at all. Wikipedia does a great job on much of this stuff. 😉

 

[vailr]

Wikipedia:

To ease their transition to SATA, many manufacturers have produced drives which use controllers largely identical to those on their PATA drives and include a bridge chip on the logic board. Bridged drives have a SATA connector, may include either or both kinds of power connectors, and generally perform identically to native drives. They may, however, lack support for some SATA-specific features. As of 2004, all major hard drive manufacturers produce either bridged or native SATA drives.

Many newer motherboards have "AHCI" in the Bios setup, as a SATA mode option. This only works if the HD (or optical drive) is "native SATA".