SATA compatible clear up my confusion

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Edward Wokhands

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Nov 19, 2014
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Hey, this is my current motherboard: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4140#ov

I'm curious, I want to buy an internal hard drive for it, I know that it has a SATA hard drive in it already but I don't know whether the board supports SATA 3. Also, if it does support SATA 3 does that mean it also supports 2 and 1? Is 3 backwards compatible?

I've seen a few hard drives that I'd like but 2 are SATA 2 and the rest say they're SATA 3. What is the difference exactly? Just speed? Or is there a size limit at all?

I'm curious as to whether I'd be able to just buy any kind of SATA hard drive and whether it will just work? I'd be using it as a secondary drive to install games and bigger programs on.

Thanks!

Here's the drive I'm thinking of ordering: http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/components-upgrades/internal-hard-drives/3-5-inch-hard-drives/toshiba-pa4293e-1hn0-internal-3-5-sata-hard-drive-3tb-21163687-pdt.html#cat-0

Or this one: http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/components-upgrades/internal-hard-drives/3-5-inch-hard-drives/wd-mainstream-3-5-internal-hard-drive-3tb-21651952-pdt.html#cat-0
 
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popatim
Mechanical harddrives cannot exceed sata 2's max speed and many cannot exceed sata 1's.

The difference between sata2 & 3 is mainly communication speed, how much data it can flow: 3gb vs 6gb. (gb = giga BITS (not bytes))

All sata drives and ports are backwards compatible. Plug in a sata1 drive to a sata3 port and they will run at sata1 speed. Plug in a sata3 drive into a sata1 port and they will also run at sata1 speeds.
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Saberus

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Aug 23, 2013
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SATA is backwards compatible in both directions, the board and drive will talk to each other first and negotiate the highest common speed between them. The SATA spec has no size limitations, or at least they are so arbitrarily high that no hard drive or SSD that is small enough to fit in a PC will exceed it in the foreseeable future.
 
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popatim

popatim

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Mechanical harddrives cannot exceed sata 2's max speed and many cannot exceed sata 1's.

The difference between sata2 & 3 is mainly communication speed, how much data it can flow: 3gb vs 6gb. (gb = giga BITS (not bytes))

All sata drives and ports are backwards compatible. Plug in a sata1 drive to a sata3 port and they will run at sata1 speed. Plug in a sata3 drive into a sata1 port and they will also run at sata1 speeds.
 
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