Solved Will Satat3 perform OK on an older MOBO?

Hi - I want to re-install Windows 7 onto a new HDD, but have had some trouble finding a Sata II. My motherboard is a Gigabyte UD3-SLI, probably 3 years old, so I don't THINK it's Sata 3 capable - can't easily establish that. However, as Sata 3 seems to be all that's readily available I am wondering if it matters if I just get one of them, or should I keep looking for a high-cache Sata 2?. In other words - I am aware that I won't get 6GB, but will it do at least the job of a good Sata 2. TIA for info.

Yes, Hoods, a sata 3 drive will work perfectly on your motherboard. Sata 3 is backward compatible with sata 2, so now worries. Just as you said though, you will only attain sata 2 speeds with your mother board if it in fact only has sata 2.

Alternatively, you can get a PCI-Express card that provides SATA III capabilities. An example of which is the card which I have, based on the Marvell 88SE9128 chipset.

Thanks, @Tommyg - that's good to know. Just wanted to be really sure before buying the wrong thing.

Dwarf said:

Alternatively, you can get a PCI-Express card that provides SATA III capabilities. An example of which is the card which I have, based on the Marvell 88SE9128 chipset.

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And that's really good to know! I had no idea that was possible. I already added a USB3 PCIe card to my otherwise still really great system (it's an i7 920 - which was top of the range when I had the system built) so I should have figured it out, I guess!! I will get right onto that. Thanks!

It will work fine, but as with most hardware discussions like this, it will work at the speed of the slowest link along the chain. That's always the best way to envision these layouts. If the slowest link is the motherboard at SATA II, then that's the speed you can expect.

Unless you are running an SSD drive though, no mechanical hard drive is going to fully utilize SATA2, let alone SATA3. So, don't buy a standalone controller card hoping for a big upgrade if you are using a standard mechanical hard drive.

pparks1 said:

Unless you are running an SSD drive though, no mechanical hard drive is going to fully utilize SATA2, let alone SATA3. So, don't buy a standalone controller card hoping for a big upgrade if you are using a standard mechanical hard drive.

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More food for thought ...

The reason I'm doing this is quite embarrassing. I originally had my system on a partitioned Sata II drive, and all was well. A couple of weeks ago I found an old but perfectly good 350GB HDD lying around and thought it would be a good idea to install to that and have my system on a dedicated HDD. STUPIDLY STUPIDLY I didn't at the time even think about what it was (other than Sata, obviously) and of course it's Sata I. Doh. That was OK for a while, but I've noticed the performance of my system is pretty sluggish and then figured out the problem is no doubt (of course, again) the HDD. I can put things back the way they were easily enough, except now my backup software is going through the motions but ultimately producing a zero bytes image. Cr*p. Luckily I have the backup I did before rearranging my life, but I've done an annoying amount of extra stuff in the last week that isn't yet on the backup. When I went to back it up today prior to restoring drives to what they should be, my software keeps returning a zero bytes file - clearly not keen on backing up Sata I. !@^@!^!@!!! I could spit.

^ Actually, not as stupid a move as you might think. It's practically impossible for most mechanical hard drives to fully saturate a SATA 150 connection. It's more likely slower as the drive probably has slower random access times, and a smaller amount of cache.

pparks1 said:

^ Actually, not as stupid a move as you might think. It's practically impossible for most mechanical hard drives to fully saturate a SATA 150 connection. It's more likely slower as the drive probably has slower random access times, and a smaller amount of cache.

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I feel better now. Like a SATA drive we 63yo grandmas are no longer programmed for 100% brain function, y'know. Anyway, I have got everything back together again - found and applied the right parameters for my backup software so all is well again and my system has now been restored back onto the original Sata2 drive.

The actual processing on my system running from the Sata I was fine - e.g. working a really big Photoshop CS6 file, that sort of thing - I have a great chip and RAM - but I'd get this occasional really irritating almost palpable hitch when disk access was required by anything, and also when moving between C:-D: or accessing D: (where all my data are) drives. I don't notice any lagging when going from Sata 2 to Sata 2.
Thanks again for all help and suggestions - off to buy a SATA 3 now, but not going to bother with the PCIe card.

The first thing to know about any bus is that the Sata II and Sata 3 buses are rated by peak access times not by the persistent average times! Under ideal conditions you can reach the maximum only when peaking being the maximum speed supported.

With a pair of each S2 and S3 drives they all average about the same when transferring files over from one in a pair to the other. I had 7 installed on one of the S3 drives first and when needing a reinstall due to hardware change the next clean install went onto a Sata II and never made any large difference. Despite the faster bus the access times averaged out to be the same speed.

If the Sata I drive you have likely being a 4,200 or 5,400rpm drive then the obvious improvement would be with one of the newer S2 or S3 drives likely being a 7,200rpm model. That plus the larger cache will do more performance wise and help eliminate the bottle neck you are running into with programs like Photoshop.

Night Hawk said:

If the Sata I drive you have likely being a 4,200 or 5,400rpm drive then the obvious improvement would be with one of the newer S2 or S3 drives likely being a 7,200rpm model. That plus the larger cache will do more performance wise and help eliminate the bottle neck you are running into with programs like Photoshop.

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I can't get the Sata I drive out of my tower - it's royally stuck so I've just left it in there for now - to see what its speed is, or even what the model is to check - but, given its age and size (only 350GB), I am sure it's not 7200 and it could be as low as 4200. My other two drives (2x1TB) are both 7200, not sure what the cache size is, but I've never had a problem with bottlenecking on or between either of those. I don't really NEED a third drive, but with the number/size of files I have made it much easier to manage my system when I had it separate on the small HDD and had the 2x1TBs for data (just over .5GB) and various other files (slightly over 1TB). So, I will get a small Sata3 and put the system on that and go back to having plenty of space for my other stuff - it's just too tight on 2 drives. (At the moment everything is backed up onto a 3TB external.)

I'm looking at adding a 5th internally if one of the WD Black edition model drive which would be 2tb or over in order to store multiple system images. The present Sata III drives are both 1tb and I now how fast those can fill up.

When going to price a 2tb drive the Sata II was higher then seen with the Sata III equivalent at one vendor. Newegg saw $200 for the S2 and about $180 for the S3 version!

I have decided to go with a Hitachi 500GB Deskstar 7K1000.D for my W7 system drive - I won't even fill half that, with all my data on a separate drive. My 3GB external is a USB3 Hitachi Tuoro and it has not skipped a beat. You tend to go with a brand that's been good to you. Having said that, I've always used Seagate before, never tried WD.

I've never done the multiple system thing ... been tempted to try Linux just for the sake of it, but really, W7 has never given me a single problem and, other than advanced Photoshop, my usage is bog boring - no serious gaming, no Autocad or 3D design any more ...

What 7 has proved itself over and over time again is that it is the most reliable version that MS has ever come out with except Vista while some of the differences are noticable between the two versions. Stability is the strong points on both however.

Linux is a different animal there. You have a few options available before trying to set up a dual boot with another OS like running a distro on a VM, burning a live cd or dvd depending on which Linux flavor, or a custom install to a usb flash drive without trashing the Windows mbr!

Besides any VM here I put a distro like ubuntu or Linux Mint Debian(replaced ubuntu earlier with LMD) on the second root partition of a usb flash drive seeing that made the "/ mount point" and the Grub boot loader installed to the flash drive not the Windows drive. The flash drive will then be a bootable medium with an OS of it's own.

For a first time the best idea is a cd or dvd rewritable disk to burn a live iso and boot live from disk before attempting any direct install. That way no changes to your drives are seen. No mess no fuss and a basic quick look at the other OS.

I believe you meant 3tb external for terabyte not 3gb there. As far as brands Hitachi is a relatively new brand when compared to Seagate and Western Digital that both go way back! I tend to find Seagate runs higher pricewise while not being better or worse then WD.

Night Hawk said:

For a first time the best idea is a cd or dvd rewritable disk to burn a live iso and boot live from disk before attempting any direct install. That way no changes to your drives are seen. No mess no fuss and a basic quick look at the other OS.

I believe you meant 3tb external for terabyte not 3gb there. As far as brands Hitachi is a relatively new brand when compared to Seagate and Western Digital that both go way back! I tend to find Seagate runs higher pricewise while not being better or worse then WD.

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I didn't even know that was possible!! I might give that a go!

TB, yes. I went with the Hitachi also because it was one of the few at a reasonable price with a 32MB cache and only 500GB. I figure if I do upgrade my system (unlikely at this point) having a good Sata3 drive is forward planning.

A good number of the new and recent boards seen now are strictly Sata III no longer seeing Sata II ports on the board. That's likely why you are now seeing lower prices on S3 drives then with S2 since everybody will be buying the newer while the vendors still have to stock the older!

As for taaking a look at the other OS the best move for any first timer would be booting with a live cd-r. Ubuntu is the most popular being small but as small as some like Puppy Linux. Another distro with a live/live to install live dbd image that looks even better while larger would be Linux Mint.

A live cd can also serve another purpose at times many are not aware of. How about a data rescue stick using a live distro to custom install the other OS onto a usb flash drive for example. http://www.sevenforums.com/chillout-room/11844-using-other-os-usb-rescue-device.html

The cautionary note is to also have the 7 dvd or repair cd containing the 7 repair tools onhand before ever attempting this in case you end up replacing the 7 mbr with Grub! Grub the other guy's boot loader has to be installed to the flash drive where two partitions are created not one as explained there. The second being the root//swap file system partition while the first much larger partition that Windows can see is formatted to NTFS.

If for some reason your present 7 installation won't load and you need access to files fast this is where something like this would have an application especially if the 7 main drive has to be wiped clean. Always sweep a flash drive with a security program following a data recovery if there is any indication of malwares however!

The guide there is mostly for the advanced user as one other thing to mention here. For now however a live cd would be the idea for the first look. A live cd can also be used the same way only not having any room to save files on the live disk itself.

Another guide for a one time small distro like ubuntu Knoppix now a large dvd sized release explains this. Computer First Aid Using Knoppix

As far as caches on drives the largest seen with any is 64mb like this Hitachi 4tb model. Newegg.com - HGST H3IK40003272SP (0S03355) 4TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

That's a wee bit too high on price right about now however! Another 3tb drive with a 64mb cache goes for far less try $170 seen at Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar Green WD30EZRX 3TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Too bad that wasn't the WD Black edition series for the Sata III drive there. The 4 internal HDs are all Black Edition series 1tb drives while the 1tb in the external enclosure is a Green Power low perfomance series.

Here I knew I would need more drive space for the OS drive for various projects like VMs and video where drive space becomes a commodity. The 500gb should work out for you there however not likely to see anywhere near as much data on the main OS drive.

When planning out a new build or buying a new OEM machine then you would be more likely to look at all options available since you will be looking for a total cost on everything when going to upgrade. The larger cache mostly is for the larger capacity. 32mb is good for a 500gb.