SATA II versus SATA HDs

homercles337

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Dec 29, 2004
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Im currently buying pieces and have noticed that many of the SATA HDs i come across specifically state things like SATA 150. Does this mean that this drive will NOT work at SATA II speeds? I cant imagine that it does, but I still have yet to even find a "SATA 300."
 

Matthias99

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Oct 7, 2003
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SATAII (ie, SATA300) controllers are backwards compatible to the "old" SATA150 devices. Some will also enable NCQ if the drive supports it.

It makes absolutely no difference in terms of performance, as no current hard drives can push 150MBps, let alone 300!
 

homercles337

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Dec 29, 2004
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Cool thanks Matthias. I am familiar with NCQ, but havent seen any drives that support it yet. I guess im just going to pick up a couple sata150s and upgrade when sata2/ncq hits the market. Does this sound reasonable to you? I was thinking that a small 10k paired with a big 7200 would do, but now im thinking maybe just a couple med/small 7200s would be better. Suggestions?
 

Algere

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Feb 29, 2004
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Originally posted by: aeternitas
two 74 raptors will often saturate 150. dont get me started on 4.
Probably, if Raptors were connected via Parallel ATA/133 (on same cable), fortunately they're not - each SATA drive gets its own 150 or 300 mb of bandwidth per SATA cable. Therefore SATA drives (even Raptors) haven't reached full saturation point yet.