sats2 drives with linux
 

Has anyone tried had trouble getting a sata2 hard drive working with a regular sata controller on Linux? Is there anything I should be aware of that won't work in Linux, so I will know not to buy it? sata2 controllers are out of my price range right now, and I do not have PCI express. I also do not want to get external drives. Sorry, I am a newbie :newbie: about this. The picture here shows a place to plugin a power wire to the sata2 hard drive. Does newegg have any of these? I couldn't find any. I am going to be using a sata2 hard drive with a sata1 controller. Do I use a sata2 wire or sata1 wire, or is there only one wire that both types of satas use? Are the wires expensive? How do I get the power wire for the sata hard drives to work with my power supply? What about the wires that one end plugs into the sata2 hard drive and the other end plugs into the sata controller? Is that expensive? Thanks for any help.

I just installed two Seagate SATA-300 (aka SATA-II) drives and a Promise tx4302 controller. Everything worked fine with Ubuntu 606 and Fedora 5.
It think the SATA data cables are the same for all.
I got 2 power adapters for $1.99 ea at Fry's (California) Depending on where you are, they should be available in a local store.

I have Fry's here. There is one in Austin and at least one in Houston in Texas. Is the Promise tx4302 controller made for sata1? How did you use the power adapters with the power supply? Did you have to open up the power supply? After buying the hard drive, I won't have a lot of money left over for controllers. I see sata1 controllers ranging from very high prices to as low as $13. Is there any reason I shouldn't get one of the cheap ones? What should I know about the controllers when choosing which one to buy? I don't need 8 ports for many hard drives. The 320 gigabyte hard drive should be enough by itself untill I buy a 64 bit motherboard with built on sata controllers in the future.

Newegg is ok for cables:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...+Cable&Ntk=all

By the way, PCI SATA adapter boards limit the throughput of SATA drives because the PCI bus runs slower than native SATA. So, unless you are running a processor based raid board, loaded with cache, you're going to take a performance hit with SATA PCI expansion boards. SATA 2 works on SATA I controllers. Most of the SATA 2 changes, which are very few, are all built in to the drive itself. They aren't dependent on the controller or operating system because they are changes to optimize the drive itself. Those transfer rates you see are between the drive head and the drive cache, not between the drive and the drive controller.

The power adaptor goes between the regular 4-pin ATA power plug and the SATA power plug.
If you are moving to a MB with native SATA in the near future, then just buy a cheaper controller. I know little about the various brands---I picked Promise because I had heard of them. very scientific...;)

When buying a sata1 controller, what should I look for? I know very little about sata1 controllers except that they are supposed to be reverse compatible with sata2 hard drives, and that's what I need. There are so many sata1 controllers to choose from. What should I look for in a sata1 controller, and what should I avoid?

If I read you correctly, you want a SATA-I controller to use with one SATA-II drive, and you want cheap. Perhaps--like me--you eventually plan to get a MOBO with native SATA-II support.

This is just about all you need to know---get the cheapest controller that works on PCI (not PCI-X)
Start here:
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Produc...10307&SortBy=A

As I said, I got a Promise card because I had read about them. Adaptec is also well known. Vantec I have never heard of.

Do I need a jumper to limit my speed? Yes, you read correctly. That is what I want. I don't expect to be able to update my motherboard anytime soon. Are you sure I will be okay with a cheap sata-1 controller? How cheap was yours? I saw them on newegg for $13 and probably lower. I will be using it for at least 6 month s if not a whole lot longer. I have school, so I doubt I'll be able to save up extra money and time to get a better motherboard soon. I was also told to get a 3ware by some, but one other said to get a promise. Some said not to get a Promise, so I'm really not sure what to get. Remember, my board is probably built before sata existed and does not have sata parts built onto it. It may have been built in 03. I bought the hard drive already. It is a 320 gb sata2 16 mb cache seagate with a 5 year warrantee. It should be here in 2 days. I plan on getting the PCI sata-1 controller. What else will I need to get this thing running and useable?

Jumper--no. A SATA-I controller will run a SATA-II drive (at SATA-I speed)
I bought Promise TX4302 (SATA-II, 4 ports, ~$80) That's maybe more than you want to spend.
Buying the cheapest of anything is often risky---but If it doesn't work, they will take it back (minus a re-stocking fee).

Also, I don't need many ports, and I do not need external drives. Compare the controllers at the website you gave me with neweggs. If I were to ever buy a sata2 controller, I'd be better off waiting for the price to come down because the are very new and pricey and probably could improve some. Do you see the ones here for $13 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...ubCategory=410 What's wrong with them? Anything? Hopefully not.

I think I already answered this. If you want to try the cheapest, then you have little to lose except your time.
Don't hold your breath for the price of SATA-II controllers to come down---they are not THAT new....

Why are all of them sold for about the same cheap price on ebay? http://search.ebay.com/search/search...ler&category0=