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Is there a program or utility available (preferably free) that can identify which versions of SATA are supported by my motherboard? The application needs to either be compatible with Windows 7 (x32 and x64) or launch independently from a boot disc.
James Watt
Posted 2010-07-25T03:22:51.080
Reputation: 1 759
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Download Crystaldiskinfo
it will specify if you have SATA II or SATA III, if its SATA II, transfer mode will be: SATA/300 if its SATA III transfer mode will be: SATA/600
Danny George
Posted 2010-07-25T03:22:51.080
Reputation: 51
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Ideally you consult your motherboard specifications, this will be the quickest and easiest a.
A tool to help you
Determine your motherboard model details is CPU-Z.
The good people over cpuid.com also have:
PC-Wizard which can report on the speed of the SATA ports.
After installing it myself it seems to only report on ports that are currently connected with a drive, and also only reports what that drive is capable on that port.
Example I have an older drive connected on a SATA III port, but it reports it as SATA I as that's all that drive can handle.
Nick Josevski
Posted 2010-07-25T03:22:51.080
Reputation: 6 747
This is an excellent way to solve the problem. Unfortunately, some OEM motherboards have very little online documentation available. The original reason I posted this is because I couldn't find any documentation when I searched for my motherboard model (which I found using CPU-Z). I then remembered how there have been utilities in the past that would easily tell me which version of USB the computer was running and assumed there would be something similar for SATA. – James Watt – 2011-09-13T13:25:05.670
There may be but with the little bit of time I spent searching I couldn't find anything other than PC-Wizard. There may be something specific to the SATA technology that makes it difficult to report on unless it's in use – Nick Josevski – 2011-09-15T21:47:34.367
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I tried Danny's answer, but CrystalDiskInfo seems to only provide the transfer mode of the drive you have installed, not the maximum that your motherboard actually supports. I found a solution online that does provide the maximum the motherboard supports: SiSoftware Sandra Lite.
You can go to the page below for a more detailed walkthrough, but the short answer is that once you run Sandra Lite, simply go to Hardware tab->Mainboard-> then let it load, and scroll down to Disk Controller, where it lists the Maximum SATA mode.
See here for more details: http://www.ghacks.net/2012/12/28/find-out-if-your-pc-supports-sata-mode-3-0-6gbs/
mmortal03
Posted 2010-07-25T03:22:51.080
Reputation: 186
I don't know if there is one, never ran across one. Some older motherboards that first came out that supported S1 had issues with S2 when it came out, some hard drive manufacturers put jumpers on their S2 hard drives to set it back to S1 for compatibility. Next generation motherboards that came out did not have this issue. So unless you have a first generation S1 motherboard there should be no issues with S2 or S3. If you do find a utility please post it. – Moab – 2010-07-25T14:24:19.940
I am particularly interested in this to know if I should bother buying the Crucial RealSSD C300. They claim if you connect it to SATA II, you will see continuous read speeds of 265MB/sec. However, if you connect it to SATA III, you will see continuous read speeds of 355MB/sec. I have a laptop that is only five months old, but I have no idea which SATA versions it supports. – James Watt – 2010-07-25T16:57:16.713
After much research, it turns out my motherboard is not SATA III compatible. Regardless, I still want to know if there is a utility available for this! – James Watt – 2010-07-27T23:52:23.780