SATA drive action

2006/10/11 in define this, hardware

This title doesn’t mean anything, like many others, but I just wondered – SATA was designed to be easier (as if it was hard to toggle master/slave jumpers on IDE drives), so 1 channel, 1 cable per drive and no master/slave switching necessary. However, drives don’t even max out IDE (133 max) but SATA I (150) was accompanied by SATA II (300) very soon and 2007 will bring SATA III (600). Some old controllers (no idea which controllers are considered old, maybe the first ones…) don’t recognize SATA II drives, therefore those drives have a jumper… This jumper can then force the drives to behave like an older model. Problem solved, drive works nonetheless.

Just noticed, that from 2 SATA drives I own, only one came with a jumper (although, of course, both had a jumper block); so good thing the one without a jumper was recognized right away (proudly using SATA I board/controller, good thing all types are compatible to each other).

Currently drives don’t make even IDE speed (yesss, as previously mentioned) for mechanical reasons, so great job for bringing SATA III with 600 MB/s next year. Go for it. MORE POWER.

Oh, almost forgot. When some controllers aren’t compatible to SATA II drives (and only to I, considering comp mode for the II drive is off), they most likely won’t be friends with SATA III drives either, so II and III are the same “level”, or the jumper block needs another mode, right? No way they would introduce incompatibility! No chance, Lance.