SATA 1 and SATA 2

[Dumbone]

HI
Can I use a newer sata 2 hard drive to replace a older sata 1 drive?
My laptop is using Vista Home premium 32 bit,, 2 gig of ram.
Do I need to be aware of updating drivers and changing pin setings on the drives?

It's been a few years since I have updated a pc or laptop and I am learning all over!!
Thanks

 

[Denithor]

Yes.

SATA2 is completely backwards compatible with SATA1 sockets.

Should be no issues - just plug in and it will work.

 

[tcsenter]

Unless it uses a VIA chipset or a SATA to PATA bridge.

 

[Golgatha]

Originally posted by: Denithor
Yes.

SATA2 is completely backwards compatible with SATA1 sockets.

Should be no issues - just plug in and it will work.

The SATA II drive will need to be set to run at SATA I somehow. A SATA II drive won't work properly on a SATA I controller. It will need a physical jumper, or the speed will need to be set with the manufacturer's diagnostic tools before you'll be able to reliably put data on there. Now if the onboard controller is SATA II, then you're good to go.

 

[RebateMonger]

SATA II drives are supposed to be backward-compatible with SATA I controllers.

There have been a few deviations from this:

Quoting Wikipedia:

"The designers of SATA aimed for backward and forward compatibility with future revisions of the SATA standard.[20]

According to the hard drive manufacturer Maxtor, motherboard host controllers using the VIA and SIS chipsets VT8237, VT8237R, VT6420, VT6421L, SIS760, SIS964 found on the ECS 755-A2 manufactured in 2003, do not support SATA 3 Gbit/s drives. Additionally, these host controllers do not support SATA 3 Gbit/s optical disc drives. To address interoperability problems, the largest hard drive manufacturer, Seagate/Maxtor, has added a user-accessible jumper-switch known as the Force 150, to switch between 150 MB/s and 300 MB/s operation.[21] Users with a SATA 1.5 Gbit/s motherboard with one of the listed chipsets should either buy an ordinary SATA 1.5 Gbit/s hard disk, buy a SATA 3 Gbit/s hard disk with the user-accessible jumper, or buy a PCI or PCI-E card to add full SATA 3 Gbit/s capability and compatibility. Western Digital uses a jumper setting called OPT1 Enabled to force 150 MB/s data transfer speed. OPT1 is used by putting the jumper on pins 5 & 6."

If you don't have these particular chipsets, your SATA II drive should work fine on your computer. I've attached lots of SATA II drives to SATA 1 controllers (Silicon Image 3112, for instance) with zero problems.

 

[Dahak]

SATA II drives will work fine on a sata I controller with no issues. the only ones that I ever had issues on are the via sata controllers, had to force them to sata I mode

 

[yugo23]

I've attached lots of SATA II drives to SATA 1 controllers (Silicon Image 3112, for instance) with zero problems.

Were transfer speeds significantly lower than when connected to SATA II controller?

 

[RebateMonger]

Were transfer speeds significantly lower than when connected to SATA II controller?

I don't know. Never measured them. All my PCI SATA cards are used to control backup disks, and I'm so happy to not be stuck with USB anymore, I never bothered measuring the (obviously much faster) transfer speeds.

 

[Old Hippie]

Were transfer speeds significantly lower than when connected to SATA II controller?

There was no difference for me but you have to realize many mechanical drives can't do SATAI speeds much less SATAII.