soloz2

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:

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.

frosty15

300mb/s eg SATA2 is the maximum burst transfer rate, usually only hit occasionally when transferring large files from 1 SATA2 hdd to another or other large highspeed transfer situations.

The biggest problem with SATA2 lies in its definition, whilst it may appear that to be SATA2 a hdd must be able to hit 300mb/s, it isn't actually the case.
There are a list of categories and for a hdd to be classified SATA2 compliant, it must adhere to some of them. Consequently there are as many SATA2 hdd's which peak at 150mb/s burst transfer rate as there are ones which can hit 300mb/s.
Until the guidelines are strickter in there approach to definition, there will be confusion.

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Didn't know that. +Rep

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jigglylizard

Wow I was gonna go for a SATA2 thinking it was twice as fast.
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d3daiM

Phew, halfway reading the faq I thought I needed some new cables. They were rated for "up to 300mb/s". They also didn't have a locking mech.

Good thing that is clarified now. Thanx. Rep +

Burn

:D The only difference between the two is that the eSata cable has a locking mechanism on both ends to prevent it becoming accidentally unplugged...My Seagate drives have the latch mechanism and it works nicely :D I am ordering 4 SATA cables with the latches on them as well, they work great.

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The_Snyper

For what it's worth, I thought all of the SATA 2 cables had the locking mechanism on them. I ordered a set. They work nice, even though I never had any problems with my SATA 1 cables working themselves free.

crashovride02

I did notice a difference when I was using my Hitachiin SATA1 mode and made the switch to SATA2. BF2 would load a bit faster etc... The dif wasn't big though. Great info. Rep +

senser1080

Wait... I'm still a tad bit confused... so you could use a SATA-300 drive on a mobo that only supports SATA-150?

soloz2

yes, they are fully backwards compatable. the SATA II/SATA 300mb/s drives are capable of faster transfer speeds, but it really only translates into faster burst speeds in real life.
Some drives have a jumper to switch to put them in sither regular SATA or SATAII mode.

The cables are the same. "SATAII" cables will have a lock on them, but they are all capable of the same transfer speeds