Using a SATAII Drive on a SATAIII Controller...?

[Cannyone]

Hi all, I'm wondering if anyone knows how well regular SATA II drives work connected to a SATA III controller. I'm interested in a progressive upgrade so I'd buy a Motherboard, CPU, and DRAM first. Then upgrade the storage solution later.

I know it will "work". I'm just unsure how well it will work. When the previous shift occurred performance of SATA I drives on a SATA II controller was truly dismal. If that same trend applies here, then perhaps I'd be better off waiting until I can upgrade my drives at the same time. (Really a shame... I have a bunch of nice HDDs.)

[skier]

no need to get a sataIII drive just yet(unless you actually need more storage) like with USB3 you're limited to the drives hardware(which a solid SATAII's drive's not far from)the controller isn't that relevant, it's all about the drive(as you know SATAII SSD's can still have massive read speeds)

the only change between a SATA II and III controller is slightly better(more stable) sustained speeds(im talking ~2-3MB/s)

[kenc51]

Unless you use AMD, then SATA3 will be provided via an add-on chipset (Marvell)
This adds latency and by it's very nature causes pointless complications with drivers when installing.
The chip(s) also have less low level performance with IO/sec etc. compaired to native solutions.
Currently the Intel (ICH) chipset is the best way to go, even for SSD users.

[Cannyone]

Well I was specifically interested in getting one of the new AMD 6-core CPUs with an 890FX chipset board. So 1. that won't have separate controller. And 2., unlike some Intel Chipset boards, it won't have many, if any, SATA II connectors. One other thing I should note is that I always run my HDDs in AHCI mode. And that may have been one of the primary factors why I found that SATA 1 HDDs on a SATA II controller performed so poorly. So I am hoping to avoid that issue this time around. I guess that means further investigation is in order...

[Major_A]

All SATA drives (to my knowledge) are backward compatible.

[Sporg]

I am almost done with a build using 3 Samsung SATA II HDDs with an 890FX type board. I got the OS loaded around midnight and did the driver and windows updates. I wasn't planning on running any weird tests, but if you have something that you want me to bench or what not let me know. This system has only been up 12 hours now, and I haven't really had a chance to stress anything, but so far no issues.

[skier]

i have three SATA II drives in SATA III ports right now, and have had a SATA 1.5 drive on a SATA III port as well, the board i have now has 6 SATA III ports and only 2 SATA II lol the SATA II ports are harder to get to so i don't use them haha

actually one of the drives im using now is a 1.5, a raptor 74 lol, i use it to run TF2 in XP pro since TF2 lags like a mofo in win7, even when i ran TF2 off my SSD

[Cannyone]

Guys thanks for your replies! I just wanted to hear from people to know that there wasn't some SNAFU.

As it turns out my plans for this update have been delayed. I decided that water cooling my gaming rig was more important that updating my second computer. The advantage is that after I've had a few months to pay down my credit card, stock of the parts I want and prices should be more stable. Am thinking of a six core AMD system on an 890FX board, but I want the new southbridge (and those are supposed to be in short supply).

Still If you could give me an update at some point in the future to confirm that you're getting good performance. It would be greatly appreciated. I am also using Samsung drives, and would probably go with 3 500GB drives.

[skier]

Still If you could give me an update at some point in the future to confirm that you're getting good performance. It would be greatly appreciated. I am also using Samsung drives, and would probably go with 3 500GB drives.

i dont think its going to change, ever, any SATA drive will work exactly the same on any SATA interface, it's all drive limited

[bubba]

Look at it like using a USB1.0 device in a USB2.0 port. Yes it works, but at 1.0 speeds not 2.0. The issue comes in when you go from putting a 2.0 device in a 1.0 port. Kinda works, but not the way its supposed to. The device is trying to pump data into a port faster then it can take it.

gotta love backward compatibility.