Sata v Sata II

[DellHater]

Hi
I have just purchased a MSI K9VGM-V mainboard which has 2 SATA drives on it.
I just went to buy a SATA drive but read a few reviews of the item I wanted to purchase, noting that a different cable was required etc for SATA II drives.

On MSI website it says

On-Board IDE/SATA
• Two IDE controllers on the VIA 8237A chipset provides IDE HDD/CD-ROM with PIO, Bus Master and Ultra DMA133/100/66 operation modes.
- Can connect up to 4 IDE devices
• VIA RAID supports 2 SATA ports (SATA1-2). Transfer rate is up to 150MB/s.
• VIA RAID (Software)
- Supports up to 2 SATA
- RAID 0 or 1 is supported


The SATA II drives have a transfer rate of 300MB/s, so does this mean that I can use SATA II but I will only get a transfer rate of 150M/B ?
Will I need a different cable (power / data) ?

Sorry if this sounds like a dumb question but I have never used SATA drives before!!

Thanks

Steve

 

[paparazi]

The new motherboard should have at least 1 SATAII cable included in the bundle.
The only real difference in the cables is that SATAII cables have a better retaining mechanism and so are more secure.
As for performance, there is little to no difference because both 150/300 interfaces far exceed the actual data transfer rates of any of these drives (it's just a connection type and what it is capable of handling)
It's actually quite difficult to find new SATA150 drives this is because SATAII is also backward compatible so there simply is no demand for the older type.
Martin

On wings like angels whispers sweet
my heart it feels a broken beat
Touched soul and hurt lay wounded deep
Brown eyes are lost afar and sleep

 

[DellHater]

Thanks Martin,
Your reply cleared that up for me

Steve