Can SATA ports on a motherboard be different versions?

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VladNicola

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May 15, 2017
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Hi everybody, this is my first post, hope I made it right
I want to swap the optical drive in my laptop with a hdd and for this I want to make sure that I can connect it to the motherboard via SATA3 for maximum efficiency.
I currently have a SSD that is connected with SATA3 and the optical drive connected with SATA1 and my question is: by swapping the optical drive, can i use the maximum SATA version of the motherboard, or is the port bound to the first version? If that is the case, is there any way that I can make use of the one SATA3 port in order to connect both the devices?

I used SiSoftware Sandra application to inspect the capabilities of my motherboard and this is what it sais:
http://prntscr.com/f85cu0

Also, does the cable influence the speed in any way? (Will I need to replace it as well in the scenario where the port supports SATA3?)

Thank you in advance
 
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You are mixing a lot of things up. And I assume you do not know much about drives.

First, you did not give any information about your motherboard model. Second you did not give any information about your CPU - it helps to know it with your motherboard. Third, you have given an absolutely useless information screenshot from Sandra - you should have used AIDA64 instead.

Now, coming to your question:

- yes, there can be different SATA ports on a motherboard.
a) there may be different SATA controllers on the same motherboard - Intel + a third party like Marvell or AsMedia etc; or AMD + thidd party . And different ports may be connected to these different controller chips and their speeds may vary.
b) The same Intel chipset may have...
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eyupo92

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You are mixing a lot of things up. And I assume you do not know much about drives.

First, you did not give any information about your motherboard model. Second you did not give any information about your CPU - it helps to know it with your motherboard. Third, you have given an absolutely useless information screenshot from Sandra - you should have used AIDA64 instead.

Now, coming to your question:

- yes, there can be different SATA ports on a motherboard.
a) there may be different SATA controllers on the same motherboard - Intel + a third party like Marvell or AsMedia etc; or AMD + thidd party . And different ports may be connected to these different controller chips and their speeds may vary.
b) The same Intel chipset may have two different SATA versions ; like Intel H81 chipset + Core i5 4570 motherboards has 2 SATA 2 and 2 SATA 3 ports. This is described in your motherboard manual and you can look it up which port is which.

- but you are looking to a different thing and if I understand you correctly, you are asking if you can speed up your optical drives speed by switching it with your fast SSD port.
a) You are on Intel Sunrise Point, which means Intel 100 series chipset and Skylake/Kaby Lake CPU. It has only SATA3 ports. This means both ports are already SATA3.
b) You are using the wrong tool again. Sandra displays a SATA version, but for what is it ? Is it for the port itself or the connected drive ? You must use AIDA64 or similar to see ports SATA version.
c) It looks like Sandra displays drives SATA version. In this case, your SSD is SATA3 but optical drive is SATA1. Connecting a slow drive to a fast port does not make it fast; connecting a fast drive to a fast port makes it faster. Why? Because it is the internal speed of the drive determines the speed.
d) What is this optical drive that you want to perform even faster than your SSD drive? What are you doing with it? Are you booting from it ? Are you executing programs from it ?
e) I assume you are not trying to make your CD-ROM faster, or not even your DVD-ROM faster - because they can not fill SATA 1 bandwidth at all. I assume you are doing some BluRay ripping on a very fast BluRay drive. Here is a link on BluRay disk speeds : http://www.hughsnews.ca/faqs/authoritative-blu-ray-disc-bd-faq/8-recording-and-reading-speed
A 16x BluRay disk speed corresponds to 68.60 MB/s transfer speed. And SATA 1 has a bandwidth of 1.5 Gbps and can easily handle 150 MB/s transfer speed in practice.
f) You are not limited by the speed of the port at all. You are limited by you optical drive speed.

So, even if you have the fastest BluRay drive in the world and it is connected to the slowest SATA 1 port in the world, you can not make it faster. Why ?
a) such an optical drive does not exist yet.
b) your drive has SATA 1 / G1 / SATA 150 connection and is limited to it.
c ) No, you can not make it run faster by replacing its SATA G1 connection with something like SATA G2 or SATA G3 connection; such a thing is not possible.

So, if you have the fastest optical drive in the world, you can not make it faster. However, if you have a slower optical drive, then replace it with the fastest optical drive in the world.

Hope this helps.

 
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VladNicola

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May 15, 2017
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Thank you for taking your time to write such an elaborate and insightful answer.
I see that my question was rather confusing, as my plan is to GET RID of the optical drive and use the spare SATA channel for a brand new HDD (with SATA3 capabilities).
I am indeed using an intel core i7 - 6700HQ cpu with a skylake architecture and the motherboard is a X550VX series from ASUS. Indeed I have a Sunrise Point H170 chipset which seems to only have SATA3 ports (from the intel specification here) which clarifies my doubts pretty much.
The question that still remains is: Should I also replace the cable together with the optical drive, or is this not a concern?
 
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eyupo92

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So you actually do not have a motherboard at all and this question is posted on a wrong forum. You had to / need to post it on laptop forum.

What you need is a "laptop ODD to HDD caddy", a simple thing that costs between 5 to 40 US dollars; you can get more information here: https://hddcaddy.eu/

Simple ones have just the caddy itself, expensive one have the caddy and an external USB ODD box where you put the ODD you have taken out and use the ODD as an external ODD whenever you need by connecting it to a USB port.

These caddies have different sizes depending on height of your ODD ( 7 mm, 9 mm , 12.5 mm) and mostly fit to all laptops.

I am using such a caddy on the laptop I am writing this message. I purchased an expensive 12.5 mm kit from Silverstone that had a USB ODD box too. I took out the ODD, fitted into the external box, and it works perfectly. I installed the HDD into the caddy and installed back on the laptop, it works perfectly.

I have a Sandisk Ultra II 960 GB as boot SSD and a Toshiba 1 TB HDD as secondary storage and my BIOS allows booting from both them.

There will be no problems as long as you want to use the new HDD as secondary device, it will be identified correctly. On some older laptops, people reported that they can not boot OS form the second HDD they added, but this happens rare.

In any case, you have an SSD from where you already boot, so you will not use this new HDD to boot from - even if you want to boot from it, you need to check it from your BIOS and make necessary changes there.

Also, as long as you connect an HDD, you don't need to worry about the connection type. The fastest HDD on the market is a 4 TB 3.5" WD Raptor desktop HDD and its speed is around 200 MB/s. I have one of the fastest 2.5" laptop HDD installed on the caddy and its speed is around 120 MB/s - less than the speed of SATA I. Altough the HDD are SATA 3 compliant, their speeds are not more than SATA I at all. Also, there are some SHDD'S like Seagate FireCuda series that have an 8 GB SSD part in them and theoretically offer a high speed - but this high speed only works if you boot from that drive and is useless if you use the disk as secondary storage, no need to pay for it.

One word of caution though - my Silverstone caddy has a green light that is always on, whether the disk is used or not. this light is very bright, basically it lights all the room as it is a night lamp. So, if you want to have the laptop in your room and want to sleep on that room and don't use a night lamp, make sure the light is only lit when you use it - or purchase one with a dimmer light. Otherwise, your room will be filled with a light all through the night; in my case the room is filled with a green light all night.

The link I have given conains instructions and videos - and it contains a video on Asus N550 as far as I can see. N550 should be the same or very similar to X550. Watch that video. If you have more questions, ask on the laptop forum, not on the motherboard forum.

You can search for terms "laptop odd hdd replacement Asus X550" etc on your own language to get answers quickly in your own language. Even in my country such a search returns hundreds of forum posts. And you can get answers on what to do with those exact cables on your laptop etc and which brand/model fits your laptop better etc.

Good luck.
 
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robert600

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i have done exactly what you are talking of doing. the cable is of no concern. i think you'll find that one screw holds the optical drive. remove it and the drive slides out. Slide the caddy in in it's place replace the screw and you are good to go. If you're lucky, the front piece of the optical drive will fit onto the caddy and your laptop will look exactly as it did before.
BTW ... I use and like Sandra ... the info you showed in the photo you gave was spot on and ... as to someone saying you don't have a motherboard because you have a laptop ... that's just plain weird!
 
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