SATA III SSD on SATA II port

[LMHmedchem]

I am wondering about the back compatibility of this. I need a few new SSD drives and one of the platforms is SATA II. The other may or may not be SATA III, I need to look up the motherboard. I would like to just get the Crucial m4 128GB models,

Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD1 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC SSD ($109)

But I don't know if there are compatibility issues like there were running SATA III platter drives on SATA II ports. I could get Intel 320's if there was an issue, but I would rather get the higher bandwidth in case I upgrade. The SATA II 320's are also significantly more expensive.

Also, what is the difference between the drive above and this drive,

Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD2 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC SSD ($129)

Thanks for the input,

LMHmedchem

[Urbanfox]

Drive width.

Credit to Pommie on that one.

As for speeds, it will just run @ SATA II speeds. No worries.

[jmilch]

SATA interface is fully backward compatible. There will not be any issues.

[LMHmedchem]

Originally Posted by Urbanfox

Drive width.

Credit to Pommie on that one.

As for speeds, it will just run @ SATA II speeds. No worries.

So is one of the above not 2.5"?

Originally Posted by jmilch

SATA interface is fully backward compatible. There will not be any issues.

I had several SATA III platter drives end up with corrupted data until I added the jumpers to slow them down to SATA II speeds, so that is why I was asking. Since I have added the jumpers, I have had no more issues, but I had to return 4 drives before I got that tip here.

LMHmedchem

[jmilch]

Originally Posted by LMHmedchem

So is one of the above not 2.5"?

I had several SATA III platter drives end up with corrupted data until I added the jumpers to slow them down to SATA II speeds, so that is why I was asking. Since I have added the jumpers, I have had no more issues, but I had to return 4 drives before I got that tip here.

LMHmedchem

Your jumper problem was drive related, not related to the sata ports on the mobo sata controller.

But as far as SSD's go, there is no trick. Just plaug and go regardless.

[LMHmedchem]

Originally Posted by jmilch

Your jumper problem was drive related, not related to the sata ports on the mobo sata controller.

But as far as SSD's go, there is no trick. Just plaug and go regardless.

That's a good thing to know, especially when I am about to drop a few hundred on drives. It would have been quite a bore to get than and then find out they don't work.

Thanks,

LMHmedchem

[hostage67]

The M4's will work fine, I currently have 4x 128g M4's in a RAID-0 setup on my G1.Sniper 3 motherboard. The motherboard only supports that many drives in a raid on the SATA II ports, so that's where I currently have them, no problems with them at all.

[Urbanfox]

Originally Posted by LMHmedchem

So is one of the above not 2.5"?

Sorry, I meant height.

SSD1 is 7 mm, SSD2 is 9.5 mm.

[PommieB]

Height is more a problem in Laptops than Desktops, OCZ, years ago did manufacture a series of ssd drives that were a mm wider than standard and wouldn't fit in laptops.

WD handles the compatibility between sata2 and sata3 chipsets by using a jumper on the rear of the drive, other manufacturers do it with the pcb board, why WD use this method, I have no idea, but they have done it since sata drives were introduced. So yes it's drive related.

The M4 have a pretty wide compatibility but need to be in AHCI or raid configuration they won't work in IDE mode and make sure you run them from the native sata 2 connectors. preferably connectors 0 and 1 or in the case of a single drive 0 if it's a OS drive. Make sure you disconnect all other drives before installing windows.

Those 320's are sata2 drives, better to buy sata3, the M4 are ideal.

Some laptops will only take a drive with 5 mm of width, others 7 mm and the larger laptops 9.5 which is standard.

Newer DTR laptops have banks of drives which take a mixture of drive widths, the Dell 18x R2 for example as a drive cage which will accommodate either 2 x 9.5mm drives or 1x 9.5mm and two 7mm drives.