1.5 gb/s

Exploded_Monitor

Exploded_Monitor

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I was just about to buy 2x 160gb SATA hard drives and use them for a raid 0 setup, then i noticed my motherboard only supports 1.5 gb/s, and the hard drives are 3.0 gb/s. Will i still be able to create an effective setup with this drawback? I could always just buy a new motherboard that supports 3.0 gb/s if it's critical. Also, I am looking for a speed increase, so if buying a 3.0 gb/s board will help me accomplish this, than please let me know. Thanks.

If I'm buying a new mobo *last resort* I'll be pretty much "upgrading" almost every part of my computer, except PSU and memory. Should I just buy something that supports conroe? I'm reluctant as I am MUCH more familiar with the 939 socket and perfectly fine with it. I also don't want to re buy memory (My current memory is 184-pin and I'd need 240-pin) and replace my good old Thermalright XP90. (there is probably an adapter for the LGA 775 socket though...) Anyway, thoughts would be appreciated.

Exploded_monitor
 
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There is no getting around numbers...3 is better than 1.5. That being said, you can probably connect the drives to the MB by attaching a jumper pin on the back, like we used to do for master/slave in IDE drives.
I did that with my SATA.

But, if you want the speed, go for the other MB.
 
Harddrives today cannot utilize the 3.0gb/s limits, nor the 1.5gb/s limit, so i'll guess you really won't suffer in performance.
 
try and find a sata1 drive to use with your sata1 board

i got a seagate 500gb hard drive that's sata 2 (commonly called 3.0) and it was a bitch to get it to work with my motherboard

sata1 boards are fussy, sata2 boards have a better compliance between peripherals/mobo's, where in the early SATA days, devices were only certified to work with CERTAIN sata controllers.

sata was far from perfect early on
 
Alright, one last question. What is cache? I see most WD hard drives have a 8MB "cache" and others only slightly more expensive have a 16MB cache. What does this mean?
 
That doesn't really help... is it worth is to spent the extra 20 bucks on 16MB cache? or is it just something minor like .03 less average seek time... Thanks
 
I dunno...I personally have 2 drives with 16mb cache, and it's slightly faster....if it's a minor difference (price wise) I'd do it, but not for like $30.

And a side note- I right now have 2 sata 2 (3.0gbps) harddrives running at 1.5gbps- the max supported by my board- just fine.
 
Cool. Thanks guys, i appreciate the help. I ended up buying this board, i know, I could have easily used mine- but I also wanted a 1394 port as I do a lot of video editing and USB is just too slow. I also wanted an SLI board just for the future. I decided not to go Intel simply because I'm an AMD fanboy and AM2 isn't that much better than 939 from what I've heard. In case anyone wants to know my completed computer is (unless i cancel the newegg order for the 4th time =P)

Mobo= ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe Socket 939

CPU=AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Toledo 2.4GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket 939 Processor (using my old XP-90 to cool it.)

GPU= eVGA GeForce 7950GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP KO Superclocked

2x Western Digital 160GB (i plan to run RAID 0) I went with the 8MB cache, saved me 25 bucks

**end of recent upgrades** old hardware:

Antec 430w Truepower II (not worried about this, i have 34v on the two 12v rails)

Corsair Valueselect 1gb dual channel (works for me)
 
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