SATA 2 vs SATA3 cables

oceanclub

Peats sell SATA 2 cables for 3.49, SATA 3 cables for 9.99. Is there any real difference between these? I note my motherboard - the ASRock Z68 Extreme4 - originally came with cables marked simply as "SATA" - no version stated.

P.

Telchak

If you're using a relatively fast SSD get the SATA 3 cable.

SATA 2 is more than sufficient for hard drives.

I'm sure your Z68 cables were SATA 3 (:

stevenf17

AFAIK there's little or no difference in the cables, it's all marketing jargon!
The sata 3 tech is all to do with the controller, not the cables!

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=693992

Serephucus

Yup, the cables are interchangeable. The speed is dictated by the drive and controller.

PseudoFamous

Serephucus wrote: »

Yup, the cables are interchangeable. The speed is dictated by the drive and controller.

I'm not entirely sure that's true. I assume it was backwards compatible, i.e., you can use the a SATA2 cable with a SATA3 drive, and vice versa, but due to the physical limitations of the SATA2 cable, you cannot reach the maximum speed of a SATA3 cable and controller combination, similar to USB2 versus USB3, and cat5e versus cat6

tl;dr, a sata2 cable will work fine and quick, but if your drive is sata3, you'll get higher speeds with a sata3 cable.

Serephucus

I am.

I'm using a SATA 2 cable on a SATA 3 port with a SATA 3 SSD, and I'm getting 410MB/s read speed. SATA 2 maxes out at around 280MB/s

stevenf17

PseudoFamous wrote: »

a sata2 cable will work fine and quick, but if your drive is sata3, you'll get higher speeds with a sata3 cable.

Doesn't seem to be the case PseudoFamous!

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/your_sata_cable_slowing_down_your_data_transfers_max_pc_investigates

PseudoFamous

Serephucus wrote: »

I am.

I'm using a SATA 2 cable on a SATA 3 port with a SATA 3 SSD, and I'm getting 410MB/s read speed. SATA 2 maxes out at around 280MB/s

stevenf17 wrote: »

Doesn't seem to be the case PseudoFamous!

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/your_sata_cable_slowing_down_your_data_transfers_max_pc_investigates

Alright, I'll retract my statement. I'm surprised about it, though, I assumed that in increasing the standards, cables would have also increased in spec

Serephucus

So did I, until I looked into it. My 410 read is actually low for the drive, should be getting closer to 500, but it's the X58 controller that's holding it back.

deconduo

PseudoFamous wrote: »

Alright, I'll retract my statement. I'm surprised about it, though, I assumed that in increasing the standards, cables would have also increased in spec

There's nothing in the cables that limits the speed really, as they don't house the controller.

oceanclub

Is there any way to test throughput so I can figure out if using the "wrong" cable is throttling the SSD?

P.

stevenf17

http://www.hdtune.com/

The free trial/free version will only let you do Read benchmarks but your read speeds will be your highest throughput anyway!