SATA I is maxed out at 300mbs.
SATA II is maxed out at 3000mbs.
while a single drive couldn't max out the SATA bus, but with 3 or 4 drives you'll really notice a performance hit. because their isn't enough bandwidth to carry all the data like in SATA II. With 10 times the bandwidth available on the bus you'll have enough bandwidth to go around.