SATA or SATA II ?

[chshwong]

Hello, I'm gonna be buying a Q6600 on a P5K-SE.
I'm not that good at building computers. I have to make the decision about SATA or SATA II. What are their main differences beside the price? Is it worth the money?
Can my P5K-SE run SATA II at its full potential?
I'm probably gonna get 2 drives. Is it ok to have one SATA and one SATA II?

Thank you very much!

 

[heyman421]

sata 2 is 2x the speed

 

[chshwong]

If a motherboard works with a SATA, would it also work with a SATA II?
And how does it 2x the speed if they are both at 7200 RPM?

 

[Cromewell]

SATA is backwards compatable, only in a few cases does it cause problems and SATA2 drives should have a jumper to limit them to SATA speed. The speed difference is only in cached read/writes, sustained transfers will be about the same.