Will SATA II work in SATA sockets?

[Dazzer]

I have an ASUS Intel 865PE S775 ATX A L Motherboard which has two SATA sockets. I have two SATA drives. I want to upgrade to a 500Gb SATA II drive. Will this run on a SATA I cable or do I need a PCI SATA II card?

I want to use the spare SATA drive - I'm thinking of an ICY BOX SATA external housing - is this a good option or should I consider an internal connection?

Dazzer

[freakitchen]

SATA II drives are backwards compatible with SATA I controllers, so no problems there.

An external housing is a good idea for backup purposes. I'm not a fan of the cheaper ICY BOX enclosures - their quality isn't that great - but the more expensive ones, like this, seem to be ok.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...d=14&subcat=72

[Dazzer]

FreakKitchen,

I was considering an ICY BOX before you mentioned it, so I don't blame you for the porblems I've encountered, but I thought you and the forum should be aware of them.

I got an ICY BOX External Enclosure IB-360AStUS SATA + USB Combo - Black/LED. Unfortunately it will not work with my SATA drive. It would only work with an IDE drive.

The manual does not explain which of the two internal SATA connectors should be used, but neither worked with the USB option. If the SATA is not supposed to work with the USB connection, then that is not clear from the ICY BOX sales spec.

On my third attempt to remove the SATA connector from one of the sockets, the socket came with it. This suggests it was not very sturdily made, and perhaps this is why it would not work with the direct SATA connection either. The SATA drive I used was straight from my PC where it worked fine. It's a SATA 1, while the other drive that didn't work was a SATA 2 set at 1.5Gb.

It's interesting that my other ICY BOX, a USB and Firewire, has never worked via firewire, and this is a known problem. I should have been quicker to demand a replacement.

Now I've a 250Gb SATA and nowhere to put it. My motherboard only has two SATA outputs. Do PCI SATA internal/external cards work ok, or could anyone suggest a reliable alternative. Of course maybe my replacement ICY BOX will work fine.

Dazzer

[rv15m]

but you would only get SATA (150MB/s) speeds and not SATA II (300MB/s) speeds right? Those speeds are the maximum, but hardly ever attained though.