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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.