2009 Mac Mini and Serial ATA interface speed - please help

Nacho -

Both the HDD and the DVD are on SATA 3 GB/s connections.

The 120GB 5400PRM original drive that came with mine is:

Hitachi HDD 5K320-120
Model: HTS543212L9SA02

Hope that helps.

-Jay

Message was edited by: Jason Williams G5

Hitachi HDD 5K320-120
Model: HTS543212L9 SA02


That model is SATA 1.5Gb/s. Look at the PDF "Datasheet" linked here:


http://www.hitachigst.com/portal/site/en/products/travelstar/5K320/


The "...02" model is not listed, but if you look in the "How to read the Travelstar model number" section, you'll see "SA" indicated as 1.5Gb/s. All the models in the 1.5Gb/s column have "SA" in them.

Does this mean that the new Mac Mini only has a 1.5Gb/s capable HDD controller?

I looked at Apple's specs for the 2009 Mac Mini and they don't really specify. I would doubt it due to the 1066GHz frontside bus speed -- but, if true, installed SATA HDD upgrades may need to have their jumpers set for 1.5Gb/s, rather than the default 3.0Gb/s. Anyone have any firm info on this? Thanks.

and they don't really specify

Apple notoriously specifies very little -- it's highly annoying and problematic.

It may be that the SATA controller is "SATA 2" (3.0Gb/s), but Apple is using a cheaper "SATA 1" drive with it.

See this other thread where I'm trying to investigate this:

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=9357693

It's 3.0 since it uses Nvidia 730i chipset according to cpu-z which I ran on my macmini.
Only ones that use 1.5 anymore are crappy chipsets or older ones:
"
Given the importance of backward compatibility between SATA 1.5 Gbit/s controllers and SATA 3 Gbit/s devices, SATA 3 Gbit/s autonegotiation sequence is designed to fall back to SATA 1.5 Gbit/s speed when in communication with such devices. In practice, some older SATA controllers do not properly implement SATA speed negotiation. Affected systems require the user to set the SATA 3 Gbit/s peripherals to 1.5 Gbit/s mode, generally through the use of a jumper, however some drives lack this jumper. Chipsets known to have this fault include the VIA VT8237 and VT8237R southbridges, and the VIA VT6420, VT6421A and VT6421L standalone SATA controllers.[9] SiS's 760 and 964 chipsets also initially exhibited this problem, though it can be rectified with an updated SATA controller ROM."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SerialATA#SATA_3Gbit.2Fs

Some of the new mac laptops are the only ones using SATAI if you believe this article I just came across
MacBooks afflicted with SATA 'degrade'
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/06/15/macbooksataslow/