SATA3 and backwards compatability

Question

Hay guys, I'm making a NAS for serving my files around my network. I bought a motherboard, a MSI KM4M-V Micro ATX. the spec says that it has "2 SATA 1.5Gb/s connectors". I'm however find these drives quite expensive. Would a SATA3 based drive work on this motherboard?

Thanks

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 19 '09 at 14:46

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SATA 3 drives are backwards compatible with 1.5Gbps controllers. Naturally the speed will be limited to the 1.5Gbps of the controller

answered Nov 19 '09 at 14:46

Dave M

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score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:14

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You may get enough relevant information here: Is SATA 2 backwards compatible with SATA 1

The newer SATA drives will work, but you may have to set a jumper if you get an unlucky board/drive combination.

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:14

Community

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answered Nov 19 '09 at 14:48

Broam

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thanks, the drive im thinking of getting is a WD1002FBYS. any ideas if this will work? – Dotty Nov 19 '09 at 14:50
Unfortunately I'm not familiar with drive specifics enough to tell you. The WD drive may have a "sata 1 mode" jumper or something similar; you should familiarize yourself with its location. You may not need to set it, though. – Broam Nov 19 '09 at 17:23

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 19 '09 at 17:41

At work we use WD SATA2 drives on boards that only have SATA1. I would look to see if it has four jumpers aligned like this : : : : and then you'll want to put a jumper on the second set from the left like this : [:] : : ... that is all we do at work and it fixes the problem.

SATA3 and backwards compatability

3 Answers3