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3 Gb/s SATA hard drive on a 6 Gb/s motherboard?

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I'm building my first computer, & was wondering if a 6 Gb/s SATA motherboard & a 3 Gb/s SATA hard drive can be used together? I already have the hard drive & had a motherboard picked out, but my memory is DDR3 1600, so I need a 1666 motherboard. I can't find any that are 3 Gb/s SATA, only the 6. I didn't know if they were backwards compatible, or if you have to match them up...3 & 3 or 6 & 6. Thanks!

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Motherboard Expert

The mobo itself should be backwards compatible with SATA 2 and SATA1 speeds. I think it may be possible that the SATA cables may be an issue in some instances, but all the cables I've seen on newegg are backwards compatible with SATA 3 Gbps. When you get the motherboard out I would just check to ensure the cables are backwards compatible, but my guess is you won't have any issues.
Motherboard Expert

Your SATA 3GB/s drive will implode into a black hole. Just kidding SATA 1,2,3 are all compatiable with each other. You can put a SATA 1,2,3 drive into any kind of SATA port.
Like the USPS commercial "If it fits it ships" except ships should be replaced by works.

how about the opposite? will a 6.0 Gb/s SATA HDD still function on a 3.0 Gb/s only MB? (i know you wrote 1,2,3 are all compatible but not sure if i should read that &apply to my question, sorry-thanks!)
Motherboard Master

^Yes, a SATA3 HDD works fine on a SATA2 Port. A SATA3 HDD is pointless; the fastest HDD is 140~150 MB/s or 1/2 SATA2 speed of 300MB/s. The only real plus to SATA3 HDD's is larger caches.

SSD is a whole other thing if the R/W speeds > 300 MB/s then you'll loose speed.
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