Intel Serial ATA MBP Controller

[ACiB708]

Hi all, quick question here.
I have a MBP and I plan to upgrade the 200GB 5400 RPM stock HDD for WD's 320GB 7200 RPM.

I went to system profiler and found out that it actually says that Intel SATA controller runs at 1.5 GB/s so I was confused because if I'm going to buy an HDD that runs at 3 GB/s but if my computer does not even support that speed, then what's the point right? But I did some more research and found out that the stock MBP (previous gen 4,1. 2.4 GHz) HDD is Fujitsu MHY2200BH which runs at 1.5 GB/s. So my question is If I upgrade to the 3 GB/s HDD will the Intel SATA controller support it and run at 3 GB/s? I mean is system profiler only stating that Intel SATA controller runs at that speed because it is the speed it's running at right now, or is it showing a fixed speed that the controller has regardless of the HDD speed (1.5/3GB/s)?

System Profiler Info:

Intel ICH8-M AHCI:

Vendor: Intel
Product: ICH8-M AHCI
Speed: 1.5 Gigabit
Description: AHCI Version 1.10 Supported

FUJITSU MHY2200BH:

Capacity: 186.31 GB
Model: FUJITSU MHY2200BH
Revision: 0081000D
Serial Number: K43BT882HBTG
Native Command Queuing: Yes
Queue Depth: 32
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk0
Mac OS 9 Drivers: No
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified


Thanks! Hope I was at least a bit clear.

 

[J the Ninja]

Unless you plan on throwing an X-25 in there, which you evidently aren't, it won't matter. 1.5Gbps = 1500Mb/s (roughly) = 196MB/s. Factor in overhead, and you're left with about 150MB/s of bandwidth. You'll be lucky if the WD can use 2/3rds of that.

If you do it, do let us know about the upgrade results, as I'm thinking of putting that drive in my own machine.

 

[kastenbrust]

It actually doesnt make a blind bit of difference, theres no way the hard drive can match the speed your logic board can intake data so i wouldnt worry, its going to work, the only reason it appears faster is because the new Hard Drive your getting is 7200 rpm as opposed to 5400, you should notice a rather large increase in the speed MAC OS X runs at. The main thing is that its a sata connection 🙂