Confused on the difference between SATA drives and performance.
Hopefully the confusion will be gone after you read this information from overclock.net
Info: Is there a difference between SATA and SATA2 cables?
There seems to be some confusion about the difference between cables branded as SATA or SATA2. Many companies that produce the cables and even the retailers selling the cables add to the confusion by branding some cables as SATA and other as SATA2. I even have some Thermaltake SATA UV cables that are clearly sold as 150Mb/s maximum transfer rate. It would then make sense that these cables would not be good to use with a SATA2 hard drive that is capable of 300Mb/s transfer speeds.
Before going any farther I do just want to make one clarification. The transfer speeds of 150mb/s and 300mb/s in no way mean that a SATA2 drive is twice as fast as a SATA drive. Current hard drives are not even able to fully utilize the 150mb/s transfer speed. These numbers are more descriptive of burst speed.
Finally on to the cables. There is no difference in maximum transfer speeds between cables labeled as SATA vs. SATA2. The only difference is that most SATA2 cables have a locking mechanism.
I have been in contact with Seagate about this and here are a couple highlights from our correspondence:
Quote:
There is really no such thing as SATA2 cables, SATA2 drives use
industry wide standard SATA data cable. You should be able to use your
drive with the cables that you have in your system.
Quote:
There is no such thing as SATA rated at 150mb/s or rated at 300mb/s. It is
just SATA cable. Don't get confused by the marketing definitions.
Sincerely,
Alexander C.
Seagate Technical Support
In summary, both SATA and SATA2 hard drives can be used with any SATA controller. If the SATA controller can only handle 150mb/s then a SATA2 drive will function as a SATA drive. Also, any SATA cable can be used for either a SATA or SATA2 drive. Both drives and cables are fully interchangeable.
Hopefully the confusion will be gone after you read this information from overclock.net
Info: Is there a difference between SATA and SATA2 cables?
There seems to be some confusion about the difference between cables branded as SATA or SATA2. Many companies that produce the cables and even the retailers selling the cables add to the confusion by branding some cables as SATA and other as SATA2. I even have some Thermaltake SATA UV cables that are clearly sold as 150Mb/s maximum transfer rate. It would then make sense that these cables would not be good to use with a SATA2 hard drive that is capable of 300Mb/s transfer speeds.
Before going any farther I do just want to make one clarification. The transfer speeds of 150mb/s and 300mb/s in no way mean that a SATA2 drive is twice as fast as a SATA drive. Current hard drives are not even able to fully utilize the 150mb/s transfer speed. These numbers are more descriptive of burst speed.
Finally on to the cables. There is no difference in maximum transfer speeds between cables labeled as SATA vs. SATA2. The only difference is that most SATA2 cables have a locking mechanism.
I have been in contact with Seagate about this and here are a couple highlights from our correspondence:
Quote:
There is really no such thing as SATA2 cables, SATA2 drives use
industry wide standard SATA data cable. You should be able to use your
drive with the cables that you have in your system.
Quote:
There is no such thing as SATA rated at 150mb/s or rated at 300mb/s. It is
just SATA cable. Don't get confused by the marketing definitions.
Sincerely,
Alexander C.
Seagate Technical Support
In summary, both SATA and SATA2 hard drives can be used with any SATA controller. If the SATA controller can only handle 150mb/s then a SATA2 drive will function as a SATA drive. Also, any SATA cable can be used for either a SATA or SATA2 drive. Both drives and cables are fully interchangeable.
