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Mixing SATA 3.0gb / 6.0gb

Last response: in Storage
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Hello

i have a quick question! :pt1cable: 

Back in the day mixing different speed IDE HD worked however the speed of the drives was dictated by the slowest drive.

What I would like to know is does this still hold true mixing SATA 3.0gb 7200rpm with SATA 6.0gb 7200rpm.

I have some very good SATA 3.0gb that I would like to uses for documents and file storage while using the 2 newer SATA 6.0gb Hds for Windows 7 and Ubuntu.

Thank you for your help!

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Hi there,

You are absolutely right, just like the IDE (PATA) on a controller, SATA drives on a specific controller port will run at the slower of the controller speed or the Drive transfer speed. So a SATA 3Gb/s port with a SATA III 6Gb/s drive will run at the slower transfer speed.

What MB are you using? The newer MB's have both 3Gb/s ports and 6Gb/s ports, and matching them to the drives is the best way to get max performance from all the drives. If your MB has both ports coming off the PCH, choose the 6Gb/s ports from there for your Windows and Ubuntu.

Thanks for the answer! And nuts! :cry: 
I was hopping that because they are SATA they both the 3 & 6 would work together without the older 3gb affecting the 6gb.
That means three new HD instead of one.

I haven't built the system yet but what I was planning, my top three boards in my final selection are all are SATA 6!

@Newegg:
GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD5 AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
Model #:GA-990FXA-UD5
Item #:N82E16813128509


GIGABYTE GA-990XA-UD3 AM3+ AMD 990X SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
Model #:GA-990XA-UD3
Item #:N82E16813128510


GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
Model #:GA-990FXA-UD3
Item #:N82E16813128514

Thanks for the help if your have any more comments or suggestions I would deeply appreciate it.

Best solution

John didn't confirm what you were worried about. First, only VERY old IDE channel did what you speak of. They developed Independent Device Timing to combat this problem a long time ago.

http://www.storagereview.com/guide/confTiming.html

Second, what he said was that if you plug a SATA 6.0 drive into a 3.0 port, it will work at the slower 3.0 speed that the port can handle. On the same token if you plug a 3.0 drive into a 6.0 port, it will work at the 3.0 speeds that the drive can handle. (realize that as spinning disks you'll be limited by what the drive can actually do, probably around 150MBps max.) You should be able to plug both a 6.0 and 3.0 drive into two 6.0 ports and have them work at 6.0 and 3.0. Seeing as these are both mechanical drives they will only be able to do just over SATA (1.5) speeds.
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^+1.

Each SATA port is independent of the others, so each port will run at the fastest speed supported by both the port and the device plugged into it. Plugging a slower drive into one port won't affect the speed of a faster drive plugged into a different port.

And, as 47..... said, it's largely irrelevant for mechanical disk drives because they're just not that fast.

Hi again,

All good points from real experts on the forum,

Any of those MB's would be fine. The UD5 for example has 6 SATA 6Gb/s ports coming directly from the Southbridge chip, so you can use 6Gb/s drives there which will run at 6Gb/s, and the good 3 Gb/s drives you already have which will run at 3 Gb/s. There are the Marvel controllers which are for secondary drives or RAID volumes, but you may never need them.

Nothing wrong with that!
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