SATA-II Drive on SATA Raid Controller?

[slimer110]

Perhaps not a question for sevenforums, but I'd figure you guys would either have the answer, or be able to direct me to the answer. I purchased a Silicon SiI3512 SATA Raid Controller purely to have 2 extra SATA ports which I am using to connect to my case's external drive bays. I have flashed the bios of the controller and updated the driver to put it in "Base" mode so it is not using RAID. I did extensive research on this and it appears that I have this part right. For now, I am trying to connect a WD1600BEVT 2.5" SATA-II hard drive to one of these ports and am having some difficulty. I can see the drive, but when I try to format the drive in Windows, or a command prompt (using the windows recovery DVD) it hangs. I am wondering if this is a compatibility issue with a SATA-II drive on a SATA-I controller, however, most of the forums I have read state that if there is a compatibility issue, the controller won't even recognize the drive. I searched around to see if there was a way to force the HDD to SATA(150), but the jumpers on this drive are for SSC and RPS. Is there a way to fix this or do I need a drive that is capable of forcing SATA-I speeds? Perhaps even a controller capable of at least SATA-II since that is the minimum of all new HDDs?

 

[Johnathan Lyman]

SATA II drives are typically not backwards compatible with SATA I ports, especially on add-in cards UNLESS they have what is called "autospeed negotiation". This determines the max speed of the drive and tells it to compensate if it's too high (use SATA 1 vs 2). Unless there is a jumper on your drive, which it doesn't sound like there is, then the add-in card does not have autospeed negotiation. This is taken from Problems encountered installing SATA 3.0 Gb/s hard drives on SATA 1.5 Gb/s controllers.

I suggest finding an addin card that supports SATA II like this card: Newegg.com - Rosewill RC-211 Silicon Image 2 port SATA II PCI Express Host Controller Card(RAID 0/1/JBOD)

 

[ezeht]

The proper add on card that matches drive speed is best but drives are back compatible you just have to use a jumper. The drive info or from its site will tell ya the proper pins to jump a say sataII drive to run on a sata [1.5] port.

Lyman is right about that. Maybe some of the newer drives are not back compatible?

In fact if the mobo bios etc is not set up for ahci support they are running in ide mode anyway and not full sata features or speeds. And you do not need a raid to use ahci.

What you might not be able to do is run say a sataII drive on a sataIII port. The drives them selves are back compatible or older drives any way- you just have to use a jumper near where the power and sata connectors are on the drive. I jumped a sataII drive and ran it on my sata 1.5 port on my abit kn8 mobo. The mobo only uses ide or sata 1.5g.

It is best all is set up to run at its fastest but is not law.. They pretty much stopped making selling sata 1.5 drives- it is no need. You can jump a sataII drive to run at sata 1.5 speeds.

Hope you get it right and I helped some. Good luck..

 

[Johnathan Lyman]

To piggyback off of what ezeht said, you can run SATA III drives on SATA II ports (again, as long as the hardware has autospeed recognition). Most motherboards today have this thus is it is not an issue. Add-on cards sometimes do not, however.

To re-cap:

DRIVE > PORT - STATUS [CONDITION]
SATA I > SATA I - YES
SATA II > SATA II - YES
SATA III > SATA III - YES
SATA I > SATA III - YES
SATA II > SATA III - YES
SATA II > SATA I - YES [ASR]
SATA III > SATA II - YES [ASR]
SATA III > SATA I - YES [ASR]

 

[ezeht]

Nice lyman.

So I might be able to run sataII on my sataIII ports. That chart does not say I can run my sata on sataII ports tho- says yes for sata on a sataIII port. I wonder if they just missed that one a sata 1.5g on a sataII port. Id guess it will work if all the others do. If my mobo has that feature that is?

Thats good will give me something to read on. I have 2x Seagate st3200822as 200g sata I am not using now. I do think my jmicron runs 1 sata 1.5 port on my new mobo tho. I did not use them on my abit fatality an9 32x it is sataII and 1x ide can run 2 drives on it. I used them on my abit kn8 it is sata 1.5g. Maybe my fatality has that auto speed thingy and I could have used them on it or can now.

I am not using my fatality I have no drive to use on it other than my wd 80 gig ide drive I can master slave with my opti drive that is ide. I really do not care to do that and been thinking about setting it up as a game server. Be nice to get use out of these drives tho. They are over 6 years old now but ran nice when I stopped using them over 2 years ago. Might have a few more years in them. Ha ha being older tho they could go at any time and take all info on them with them. Might be best to let them go and buy new drives. Would be great in a external enclosure maybe and being I only power and turn them on when I need to add or get info from them.

I have 2x Seagate st3200822a 200g ultra 100 ide drives and 2x thermaltake silver rivers I got at the same time as my other seagates- they have maybe 8 hours on them. As said I only turn them on when I need them.

I should be able to get some use from 1 of my sata drives in this new system- being older I am afraid of it. It will run 24/7 as a internal storage drive. I record my every step in game play- 200 more gigs of storage would be nice. Maybe best if I wait and get a external enclosure that can run sata and sata II and III drives.

Good stuff I will read more on it laters after I get a nap.

Thanks

 

[Johnathan Lyman]

If that chart doesn't make sense, let me try it this way: Newer drives may not work on older ports but older drives work on newer ports. If you can't get the drive to work in your system, consider an external enclosure