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Is a SATA-300 Hard Drive backward-compatible for an original SATA motherboard connection?

I own a Dell Dimension 8300 desktop which I bought when SATA drives where first starting to come out and it has a port on it for a SATA connection. I was hoping to buy the following hard drive:

"Western Digital / Caviar SE16 / 500GB / 7200 / 16MB / SATA-300 / OEM / Hard Drive"

And I first need to make sure that it is compatible with my motherboard. Does anyone know whether this drive will connect and function properly with my old motherboard SATA port? BTW, please describe to me the solution and don't just send me links to figure it out myself.

Thanks.

PUNKY

SATA II or SATA 300 will be limited by jumper setting, use that configuration and it should be fine with your system. But you can also use it without any configure need it on your system as well. In case you want to use full functions of SATA 300, you might need update bios to it.

jerrykobes

ASKER

So does that mean that SATA is backward compatible with ALL previous versions? You mentioned both SATA II and SATA-300, but are there any versions before those two. There is a good chace that may motherboard may outdate both of those. In which case would the hard drive still work in my machine.

Also, will I run into any problems since I have four IDE hard drives already connected? Can I still connect an additional SATA drive?

willcomp

Yes. The only thing you may need to do is jumper pins 5 and 6 on WD SATA drive to reduce transsfer rate to 150MB/sec. Try it first without jumper. If drive is recognized in BIOS, you should be home free. If not, install jumper.

jerrykobes

ASKER

Thanks. One last thing, is there any hope that I will be able to get my old SATA port to function at the higher speed if I upgrade the BIOS or is it hopeless in this case and will only function at the speed it was originally designed to when first built?

PUNKY

Flash bios is very last option when really needed. If your system is now working just fine, then be it that way. Add sata drive and enjoy. Of course, update bios will have you more support on hardware, but my opinion is not to.

jerrykobes

ASKER

Right... but what I'm asking is whether there is a possibility of it supporting SATA-300 after updating the BIOS, not whether or not it is a good idea to update it.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

willcomp

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