SATA and SATA2. What's the difference?

[#1]

I am getting a new hard drive for my laptop and looking through what's available, but when punching the search Ebay is coming up with SATA and SATA2. I have a SATA in at the moment according to the hard drive label but would a SATA2 fit? Like I said..I don't know the difference.

The laptop is a Toshiba Satellite Pro C660 and can't seem to find any reference to hard drive types on the Toshiba web site. Any help appreciated on this.

[#2]

SATA 2 is backward compatible to SATA 

However it may well support SATA3 which is also backward compatible so that is what you should be going for as it is much faster than SATA2 if the motherboard controller supports it

[#3]

I'll let SanDisk explain it:

https://kb.sandisk.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/8142/~/difference-between-sata-i%2C-sata-ii-and-sata-...

[#4]

For the record I was once caught out. I bought a SATA 2 drive for an old SATA 1. computer and it did not work. What I apparently needed was to add a jumper, which I did not have, between terminals 5 and 6 to force it on to the slower speed. Maybe they all automatically configure these days but I mention it just in case.

[#5]

Thanks all for the help/advice. I'll stick to buying a regular SATA. I don't find sat here ripping out a motherboard from a laptop on a Saturday night much fun.  

[#6]

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@Pete11 wrote:

... I don't find sat here ripping out a motherboard from a laptop on a Saturday night much fun.

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Why would you be doing that?  ISTM you may have misunderstood the advice offered.  

[#7]

@RobPN

It was the thought of having to find/add a jumper. I have searched for a diagram of the layout for the board and can't find one. I have been on Toshiba site and can't even find if the board is SATA2 capable..so, I'll stick to buying a SATA.

Besides, it's Saturday night..darts match for me so which do I choose? darts match? motherboard removal?...no contest on that one.  

[#8]

The jumper is on the drive, not the motherboard.

[#9]

@Pete11

Like @Baldrick1 I also had to add a jumper for compatibility when I connected a SATA-2 HDD to a SATA-1 MB several years ago, however the jumper was on the HDD not the MB!

Since then I've connected quite a few SATA-3 HDDs and SSDs to SATA-2 MBs and never needed to add a jumper because as @Baldrick1 said, the necessity for that has been eliminated. 

Edit  @mssystems beat me to it!

[#10]

The last time I changed jumpers on a HD was to change it from Master to Slave on a desktop. I noticed that there are no jumpers on the SATA so it's not unreasonable to presume that the jumpers on the M/Board. Anyway, I've managed to get a 1tb SATA drive off a well known site for £30 posted out.

Thanks all for your help/advice.