computer components & hardware - Does my GIGABYTE mobo support SATA 3?

Bob Smith wrote:
I've googled and have read the owners manual but I still need to know
if my Gigabyte GA-880GM-UD2H (rev. 1.4) supports SATA 3 drives. Also I
have a question. I have some SATA drives already hooked up but at
different SATA's (e.g. one drive is a SATA1 and another is SATA2). Can
GA-880GM-UD2H (rev. 1.4) run SATA drives @ independent speeds or will
SATA1 drag down SATA2' performances? TIA!

SATA is designed to be backward compatible. New disks, can work with
old hardware.

A SATA III disk supports 1.5Gbit/sec, 3.0Gbit/sec, 6.0Gbit/sec.

A SATA II motherboard, supports 1.5Gbit/sec and 3.0Gbit/sec.

When those two are connected together, the negotiated speed is 3.0Gbit/sec.

Naturally, there are exceptions (and bugs) out there, but few enough
not to worry about.

1) VIA chipsets may require the user to insert the "Force 150" jumper,
to get the disk to work. The VT 8237S Southbridge, was the first
VIA chip I've heard of, that had that bug fixed. One other VIA chip,
used on add-in cards, has also been fixed.

2) Some motherboards equipped with SIL3112 (1.5Gbit/sec only) SATA ports,
would freeze if a 1TB or larger disk was connected. This was a BIOS
code bug - in many cases the motherboard was too old, to get a BIOS
update to fix it.

Bugs are constantly being discovered, even on some brand new high end
gear. While the intention is to support backward compatibility, there
doesn't seem to be enough of a program in place to *test* that
everyone plays by the rules. I'm still seeing reports of things,
that I can't explain :-(

*******

SATA ports are independent of one another, so one can run 1.5Gbit/sec
and another 6.0Gbit/sec, with no "drag down" effect.

When you look in the BIOS screen, you may see references to "Master"
and "Slave". Or to "Ultra100" or "Ultra133". These are naming artifacts
for when the hardware emulates older disk technology. If in Windows,
you see a claim the disk is in "Ultra100" mode, you can disprove that,
by using the free version of HDTune, and finding the actual transfer
bandwidth number is above 100MB/sec. That proves a reference to Ultra100
is bogus. The "burst" transfer rate, gives you an idea how fast the
cable can really run. The graphical curve, shows the limit imposed
by the media (platters and heads).

http://www.hdtune.com/files/hdtune_255.exe

For example, my 3.0Gbit/sec (300MB/sec) disk and motherboard port,
support burst transfers at higher than 133MB/sec (which is the limit
of an IDE cable using the old "Ultra" transfer modes). In this
example, I compare two benchmarking utilities, and they give different
answers. But at least the answers are higher than 133MB/sec, which
is what I wanted to see. The "burst" tells you something about
the cable and port, while the "graph" tells you how much the
platters support (not quite as much). Notice that in no case,
will you be seeing exactly "300.0", as that can't happen (packet
overhead).

http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/8...scomposite.gif

If I were to grab a 6.0Gbit/sec disk and connect it to my motherboard,
those results wouldn't change one bit...

Paul