Silly Sata HDD question.

I know this is a dumb question but I wasn't sure and my hdd didn't come with any documentation or anything.

I just bought a SATA 6.0GB/s capable Hard Drive. I've never actually used a SATA drive before so I just plugged it in and everything worked the way i assumed it would. I'm fairly certain that my motherboard only supports SATA 3.0GB/s but I didn't jumper the pins to limit my HDD to this speed.

Is it important to do this? I was under the impress that everything was forward and backwords compatible and would thus "Just work."

There are jumpers to limit HDD speed??? That's a new one to me.

If you put SATA III HDD on a SATA II interface it will run transfer at SATA II speeds. Same if you put a SATA II HDD on a SATA III interface it will transfer at SATA II speeds.

Your HDD speed is its RPMs. You can't change that.

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Originally Posted by Fuganater

There are jumpers to limit HDD speed??? That's a new one to me.

If you put SATA III HDD on a SATA II interface it will run transfer at SATA II speeds. Same if you put a SATA II HDD on a SATA III interface it will transfer at SATA II speeds.

Your HDD speed is its RPMs. You can't change that.

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It doesn't change the RPMs it just limits the transfer speed to 3.0GB/s
I wasn't sure if it was important to use this setting with motherboards that don't support the full 6.0GB/s. But i guess it just works like I originally thought so i wont bother changing it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fuganater

There are jumpers to limit HDD speed??? That's a new one to me.

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RTFM much!?! :P J/K

If everything is working and your getting the proper transfer speeds, it shouldn't be a problem. The other way around is more of an issue. Say you have a SATAII drive and the jumper is set to 1.5 then you will only get 1.5 instead of the full 3.0. I didn't realize there were jumpers at first either. I was about to send a big old nasty gram to Newegg/Seagate because I was only getting SATA I speeds and I thought they did a bait and switch on me. Found the little jumper and boom.. it was good to go!

I have only red 2-3 manuals in my life. One for my daughters car seat and one for the stroller the other was probably something baby related.

Can you give me a link to something about these switches?

Sure.. this was the top link using a Google search...

http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/...atadesktopjump

now that is something to file away and remember.