SATA and SATA II

[Joe 90]

Right, quick question...

i've not been 'into' all this new tech for a while now so just wondered if i was to buy a SATA II hdd would it work on my 'old skool' SATA mobo?
when i pull up hdds on ebuyer there seems a lot of SATA IIs and not yet seen a SATA hdd :(

[Mark]

SATA 1.5Gb/s and SATA 3Gb/s

SATA is designed to be backwards and forwards compatible (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forward_compatibility) with future revisions of the SATA standard.[8] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA#_note-3)
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 which was manufactured in 2003, do not support SATA 3Gb/s drives. To address interoperability problems, the largest hard drive manufacturer Seagate/Maxtor have added a user-accessible jumper-switch known as the Force 150, to switch between 150 MB/s and 300 MB/s operation.[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA#_note-Barracuda) Users with a SATA 1.5Gb/s motherboard with one of the listed chipsets should either buy an ordinary SATA 1.5Gb/s hard disk, buy a SATA 3Gb/s hard disk with the user-accessible jumper, or buy a PCI or PCI-E card to add full SATA 3Gb/s capability and compatibility. Western Digital uses jumper setting called "OPT1 Enabled" to force 150 MB/s data transfer speed.

From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA#Backward_and_forward_compatibility)

[Admiral Huddy]

Just to add to the Wikipedia comment.. Some SATAII drives will automatically detect and enable 3Gb/s transfer speed, the Sumsung Spinpoint for example.. Some need you to run some software, such as the IBM/Hitachi drives. These require you to run their feature tool to run at 3Gb/s.

[Joe 90]

cheers guys :D

[Steeps]

Got 2 samsung 500's on a 754 msi motherboard running very well, could see in bios from first boot without needing anything extra.