Will a SATA I (1.5) dvd rom slow my sata III (6GBs) hard drive to 1.5?

[positrak]

Just bought the following items at a well known mail order company and started looking for SATA III (6Gb/s) DVD drives and there aren't any! It's my understanding that SATA devices will ALL run at the speed of the slowest. Will my hard drive be pulled down to 1.5Gb/s when DVD is connected? Kind of got to have a DVD drive for Win 8 install and since this is going to be a game machine and all my games (except WoW and D3) are on DVD!

AMD FX-8350 Vishera 4.0GHz (4.2GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ 125W Eight-Core Desktop Processor FD8350FRHKBOX

BIOSTAR TA990FXE AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

Seagate Barracuda ST31000524AS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL10D-16GBXL

Also bought all new SATA III 6Gb/s cables so I'm covered there...

 

[wanderer11]

It will be fine. It is not going to slow down your hard drive. That HDD will not use 6 Gb/s or even 3 Gb/s. The disc drive will run even slower. Sata 3 is a marketing gimmick on HDD and ODD because none can do that speed anyway. To answer your question, a Sata 2 device in a sata 3 port will not slow down the sata 3 device in the other sata 3 port.

 

[positrak]

It will be fine. It is not going to slow down your hard drive. That HDD will not use 6 Gb/s or even 3 Gb/s. The disc drive will run even slower. Sata 3 is a marketing gimmick on HDD and ODD because none can do that speed anyway. To answer your question, a Sata 2 device in a sata 3 port will not slow down the sata 3 device in the other sata 3 port.

I hope you are correct! The large cable supplies specialists site I bought the SATA III (6GB/s) cables from warned that if more than one SATA device is connected to the SATA bus/port that all SATA devices would communicate with the MoBo at the speed of the slowest device. In this case the DVD and BluRay drives are SATA 1 (1.5GB/s). I have an older WD 750GB Black that has a jumper setting to slow it from 3GB/s to 1.5GB/s in case the MoBo SATA was only 1.5GB/s capable. So SOMETHING is going on. I just ordered this upgrade yesterday so in about 10 days I'll get it built (hopefully) and run some benchmarks and post 'em.

I've seen other messages stating that calling a HDD SATA III (6GB/s) is a sales "gimmick", possibly a "scam" which I think would be a crime.

So, to be specific: Are you saying it won't slow other devices because none can communicate through SATA III that speed anyhow or is the company that specializes, for 12 years, in cables wrong about the physical nature of SATA? Or is HDD performance not effected by ODD specs? Would my SATA III HDD slow down if I added a SATA I HDD as a second HDD for more storage?

My old MoBo has SATA II (3GB/s) and when I benchmarked HDD's there was a definate difference in speed with a SATA II HDD running at 3GB/s and then jumpered for SATA I (1.5GB/s) as well as a straight SATA I HDD.

I just now talked to a buddy who recently built a similar machine. According to him BOTH you and the cables people are right! He told me that SATA ports on MoBo are 2 types (3 counting RAID) Primary and Secondary and if I don't want to lose speed to connect all SATA III devices to one and all
SATA 1 or II devices to the other. He also said that to get full advantage of SATA III (6BG/s) that many SSD's are capable of supplying data fast enough to benefit from SATA III (but WAY pricey per GB of storage!).
Seagate Barracuda ST31000524AS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s after "instant savings" and a "promotional coupon" ended up costing $59 shipped so I guess I got a 1TB drive with a SATA III connection than doesn't spin fast enough to feed it. 1TB of SSD would require 2 512GB drives and $998... Hmm $1 per GB or 6 cents per GB. My wallet says 6 cents. Thanks! I've really gotten rusty since I retired! Also, 6 years since my last "game machine" build. Hope my pair of GeForce 1024MB GTS 250 SLI's will give me another year.

Glossary:
HDD = Hard Disk Drive, ODD = Optical Disc Drive (CD.DVD,BD) SSD = Solid State Drive, MoBo = Motherboard, SATA = Serial ATA, PATA = Parallel ATA (IDE)

 

[bryonhowley]

No your DVD rom drive will have no effect on the speed of any of your other devices. Each device will run at the speed it is intended to and dictated by the port and device plugged into it. I remember that being a problem years ago with PATA devices connected to the same ribbon cable in master slave but that is long out dated.

I have a SSD for Windows 8 an SSD for OSX and 6 3tb WD HDD plus my LG Blu-Ray burner and have had no problems with any of my drives slowing down. I have so many hard drives that I have used my 6 onboard ports plus two more on a PCI-E port card.

 

[positrak]

Best answer selected by positrak.

 

[positrak]

No your DVD rom drive will have no effect on the speed of any of your other devices. Each device will run at the speed it is intended to and dictated by the port and device plugged into it. I remember that being a problem years ago with PATA devices connected to the same ribbon cable in master slave but that is long out dated.

I have a SSD for Windows 8 an SSD for OSX and 6 3tb WD HDD plus my LG Blu-Ray burner and have had no problems with any of my drives slowing down. I have so many hard drives that I have used my 6 onboard ports plus two more on a PCI-E port card.

Thank you! Thanks to wanderer11 also! Here is why I was so thick-headed about this. Direct quote from cable supplier: "data transfer of the SATA subsystem will be limited to that of the slowest device". Here is what messed me up. They mixed HDD, ODD, SDD, drives, cables and SATA CONTROLLER together as "device". [Face palm] Of COURSE if the Controller is the slowest "device" everything is going to be limited to the controller speed! I sent them a message about changing how they worded that.

Note: I picked "bryonhowley" as "Best Answer" for 3 reasons: 1: He had more info to work from and gave a more complete answer. 2: His devices were same manufacturer of most of my HDD's and LG makes both my DVD and BluRay burners and WD makes 3/4 of all HDD's owned over 30+ years. and 3: Anyone successfully running both Windows 8 and OSX and has over 18TB storage is crazy. Cool crazy. My kind of crazy! (grin) Thanks again.

P.S. I think the old PATA/IDE Master/Slave on same cable problem is what triggered my mental malfunction. With 2 ports (Primary/Secondary) and the potential of 4 drives you also had data transfer between devices slowdown on same cable and you could optimize speed by putting an ODD reader on primary and writer on secondary for "on the fly" backup. Ancient history, true. But there are people out there (collectors mostly) with 8086-8's, 286's, Tandy TRS 80's and PC Jr's that work!

 

[wanderer11]

"data transfer of the SATA subsystem will be limited to that of the slowest device". They mean if you have a SATA 2 hdd and a SATA 3 cable it will run at SATA 2.