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Sata Iii ? SATA vs. SATA II vs. SATA III vs. ESATA

#1 User is offline   MLStrand56 

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Posted 04 December 2012 - 07:10 AM

What is the difference between SATA, SATA II, & SATA III? Can a SATA III HD be plugged into a SATA or SATA II header?

Today I found a 2TB WD SATA III HD for $99. Does that HD require some sort of new/different SATA header/mobo?

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#2 User is offline   LiveBrianD 

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Posted 04 December 2012 - 07:13 AM

They're just different versions of the interface, 1.5Gb/s, 3Gb/s, and 6Gb/s respectively, and are all backwards compatible. To be honest though, only SSDs really need SATA 3 (6Gb/s).
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#3 User is online   waldojim 

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Posted 04 December 2012 - 12:01 PM

There are rare situations where newer drives don't work correctly on older controllers. When that comes up, there is usually a jumper included to limit the drive itself to the older standard.
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#4 User is offline   smax013 

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Posted 04 December 2012 - 08:39 PM

You also asked about eSATA. eSATA is just an "external" SATA connector. It allows you to use an external hard drive with an eSATA connection...and will be able to achieve SATA speeds (i.e. faster than common external drive connections such as USB 2.0 and Firewire).

And depending on how your eSATA port on your computer operates, it might make the computer "treat" the eSATA external drive the same as if it was an internal SATA drive. For example, I get the eSATA ports on my desktop by using an eSATA bracket that connects to an internal SATA port on my motherboard. As a result, when I connect an external drive by eSATA or an bare internal drive using a "docking station" that connects by eSATA, I can boot from those drives. I use the "docking station" for making clones of my boot drives.

eSATA bracket: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16812119021
"docking station" with eSATA connection: http://eshop.macsale...ogy/FWU3ES2HDK/
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