[Zarafa]

What type of SATA interface do the new MacBooks have? I can't find this on the Apple spec pages and have not yet had the opportunity to check one out in person.

I'm about to order a new black MacBook, and am thinking about getting a separate "Seagate Momentus 7200.2 SATA 3.0Gb/s 200-GB" (model ST9200420AS) hard drive to replace the existing drive. But is the internal interface SATA-150 or SATA-300? If only SATA-150, I might change which replacement I pick. I'm sure the default drive is SATA-150, but that doesn't speak to the laptop's interface.

Thanks in advance.

[mduell]

ICH8M supports SATA 3.0Gb/s, but it doesn't matter; SATA 1.5Gb/s and 3.0Gb/s controllers/devices are fully compatible and laptop drives can't saturate SATA 1.5Gb/s anyway.

[C.A.T.S. CEO]

Originally Posted by mduell 

It doesn't matter, since SATA 1.5Gb/s and SATA 3.0Gb/s devices are fully compatible and laptop drives can't saturate SATA 1.5Gb/s anyway.

Even the 7200 RPM drives?

I have the 1st gen MacBook (which has SATA 1) and I was wondering what HD I should get to upgrade it. The ones at OWC are SATA 2, last time I run a SATA 2 drive on a SATA 1 interface it was slower than PATA.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by C.A.T.S. CEO 

Even the 7200 RPM drives?

I have the 1st gen MacBook (which has SATA 1) and I was wondering what HD I should get to upgrade it. The ones at OWC are SATA 2, last time I run a SATA 2 drive on a SATA 1 interface it was slower than PATA.

The fastest 2.5" 7200RPM drives top out at about 70MBps.

That sounds like a bug, not normal behavior. Did the drive have a jumper to choose between 1.5Gb/s and 3GB/s?

OWC's drives are overpriced; go to Newegg and get the same thing for less.

BTW, "SATA 1" and "SATA 2" don't mean anything. See the SATA-IO naming guidelines here.

[Dork.]

The drive in my new MacBook is a Fujitsu MHY2080BH.

System Profiler says the Macbook is using an Intel ICH8-M (I assume that's the SATA interface chip), AHCI Version 1.10, at 1.5 Gigabit.

[Simon]

Originally Posted by Dork. 

System Profiler says the Macbook is using an Intel ICH8-M (I assume that's the SATA interface chip), AHCI Version 1.10, at 1.5 Gigabit.

Actually, the ICH8-M is the southbridge which is Intel lingo for the i/o controller hub (and hence "ICH"). It is the SATA controller, but it also does PATA, PCI, USB, audio, etc.


(image not yet updated for the latest MBs)

[C.A.T.S. CEO]

Originally Posted by mduell 

The fastest 2.5" 7200RPM drives top out at about 70MBps.

That sounds like a bug, not normal behavior. Did the drive have a jumper to choose between 1.5Gb/s and 3GB/s?

OWC's drives are overpriced; go to Newegg and get the same thing for less.

BTW, "SATA 1" and "SATA 2" don't mean anything. See the SATA-IO naming guidelines here.

I don't know if the drive has the 1.5 jumper on, but it would explain why my MacBook is so slow on boot. So are you telling me that the SATA controller is 1.5 or 3 Gbit?

[mduell]

Originally Posted by C.A.T.S. CEO 

I don't know if the drive has the 1.5 jumper on, but it would explain why my MacBook is so slow on boot.

You shouldn't need to use the jumper, but if it's there it's for situations like this.

Originally Posted by C.A.T.S. CEO 

So are you telling me that the SATA controller is 1.5 or 3 Gbit?

It's 3.0 Gb/s, as I said in my first reply.

[Simon]

Although Apple is using Intel's ICH8-M which is capable of 3.0 Gbps SATA, Apple labels it 1.5 Gbps on both MBP and MB documentation.

Now either they simply mislabeled it for some reason or they have actually limited it in firmware. If the latter's actually the case you sure wonder why. OTOH since no 2.5" drive can actually saturate a 1.5 Gbps SATA link it's not relevant for everyday performance.