What HDs will be compatible with my mobo.

[KyyaL]

Well, I'm considering buying a new HD but I think my mobo is kinda old so I'm not sure if it will support the newer HDs out there. Right now i'm using a 1tb hitachi SATA 3gb/s, 16mb buffer and 7200 RPM. My motherboard is EVGA nforce 750i sli ftw with serial ATA II ports, so if anyone can lmk what kind of HDs I should be avoiding would be much appreciated.

[Deleted]

Any SATA 2 HDD..

Sata 3 supports 6/gbs but no HDD will even transfer that fast.. So no point in getting SATA3 yet unless you want a bigger epeen or just want to prepare for... the future?
But your motherboard doesnt support SATA3 anyway. And that is by no means any loss.

[KyyaL]

So it'll still work as long as it's 3gb/s right? and the buffer speed 16mb, 32bm, 64mb, etc... doesn't matter?

[Deleted]

SATA-3 is backwards compatible, so you can install any HDD out there, as long as it's not a IDE (very very old) or SCSI (server HDD's) drive.

[Deleted]

Any SATA 2 hard drive will work yes. buffer doesnt matter.
SATA II = 3gb/s and SATA III = 6gb/s. That doesnt mean that they will ever transfer at these speeds though. Its the maximum that they can support. the typical HDD transfers about 280mb/s. So 0.28gb/s

[haxartus]

the typical HDD transfers about 280mb/s. So 0.28gb/s

What ??? You're kidding, right ?

[Fuzzykins]

Don't some motherboards STILL have IDE?

[KyyaL]

Any SATA 2 hard drive will work yes. buffer doesnt matter.
SATA II = 3gb/s and SATA III = 6gb/s. That doesnt mean that they will ever transfer at these speeds though. Its the maximum that they can support. the typical HDD transfers about 280mb/s. So 0.28gb/s

You're very helpful, appreciate the explanation.

Edited for quotation.

[Deleted]

Well, I'm considering buying a new HD but I think my mobo is kinda old so I'm not sure if it will support the newer HDs out there. Right now i'm using a 1tb hitachi SATA 3gb/s, 16mb buffer and 7200 RPM. My motherboard is EVGA nforce 750i sli ftw with serial ATA II ports, so if anyone can lmk what kind of HDs I should be avoiding would be much appreciated.

mobo? music of black origin?

[haxartus]

Any SATA 2 hard drive will work yes. buffer doesnt matter.
SATA II = 3gb/s and SATA III = 6gb/s. That doesnt mean that they will ever transfer at these speeds though. Its the maximum that they can support. the typical HDD transfers about 280mb/s. So 0.28gb/s

SATA I max speed is 1.5Gbit/s which is about 180Mb/s, but there are some technical limitations, so the maximum effective speed is 1.2Gbit/s or about 150Mb/s.
SATA II max speed is 3Gbit/s or 375Mb/s, maximum effective speed about 2.4Gbit/s or 300Mb/s .
SATA III the same thing, max speed of 6Gbit/s or 750Mb/s, but max effective speed of about 600Mb/s.
The typical speed of a SATA II HDD is from 100 to 150Mb/s which barely touches the upper limit of SATA I. The need for SATA III came because the new SSDs were able to come really close to the limit of SATA II.

[vesseblah]

the typical HDD transfers about 280mb/s. So 0.28gb/s

Typical 7200rpm SATA2 HDD transfers about 80MB/s, but can peak up to 130MB/s-ish... Even SATA1 with 150MB/s maximum speed would be enough since the mechanical discs are just too slow.

SSDs with Sandforce chip can get up to 280MB/s read/write rates and comes very near to SATA2's maximum of 300MB/s.

[Deleted]

/shrug. Didnt know for sure. Just read on the spinpoint F4:
transfer speed: 285MB/s

[vesseblah]

/shrug. Didnt know for sure. Just read on the spinpoint F4:
transfer speed: 285MB/s

Peak transfer speed from cache is not the same thing as sustained transfer speed from the platter.

F4 speed benchmark - min/avg/maximum read speed is 77.8/122/150.6 MB/s
compared to
SSD benchmark with min/avg/max read speed 151.8/210.5/231.7 MB/s

(pictures from here, first hit when I googled for "samsung spinpoint f4 benchmark")

F4 is fast in sustained reads, but at best still only half the speed of average SSD. Where mechanical discs drop like a rock is seek times and random access.

edit:

For additional shits & giggles, here's WD Caviar Green from the same test, just to show people how slow the 'green' disc actually is... 33/58/71.8 MB/s min/avg/max read speeds...

[Deleted]

/shrug. Didnt know for sure. Just read on the spinpoint F4:
transfer speed: 285MB/s

Probably Read and Write together.

[kailtas]

Gigabit/s =! GigaByte/S

1GigaBit = 125 MegaBYTES

1 Gigabyte = 1024 Megabyte

[texruska]

Don't some motherboards STILL have IDE?

I bought a Gigabyte motherboard in January that has IDE (my HDD failed like, a week ago and it was an IDE one), so yes some do.

[vesseblah]

Don't some motherboards STILL have IDE?

I bought a Gigabyte motherboard in January that has IDE (my HDD failed like, a week ago and it was an IDE one), so yes some do.

Those are meant for CD/DVD drives instead of HDD's even though you can plug HDD in it. PATA HDD's went out of sale several years before DVD drives did.

[texruska]

Those are meant for CD/DVD drives instead of HDD's even though you can plug HDD in it. PATA HDD's went out of sale several years before DVD drives did.

Well, I've had that HDD for several years and so did my grandparents before me (I'm impressed by how long it's lasted to be honest) so that might explain it. I'm hoping for a good jump up from that old 120GB to my new 1TB SATAII *crosses fingers*

[HolgerDK]

Gigabit/s =! GigaByte/S

1GigaBit = 125 MegaBYTES

1 Gigabyte = 1024 Megabyte

That would be 128 MegaByte, not 125.

---------- Post added 2011-04-24 at 01:50 PM ----------

Well, I've had that HDD for several years and so did my grandparents before me (I'm impressed by how long it's lasted to be honest) so that might explain it. I'm hoping for a good jump up from that old 120GB to my new 1TB SATAII *crosses fingers*

If your current harddrive is that old, your gonna get a huge jump in speed/responsiveness if you switch to a sata-based harddrive, thats for damn sure.

[Deleted]

That would be 128 MegaByte, not 125.

correct me if I'm wrong, but a Gigabit is 1000 megabits, 8 bits = 1 byte. 1000 / 8 = 125