W500 HD capped at SATA 1 (1.5Gbps)?

[Zuxy]

Hi all,

I have a W500 (TYPE 4061-B41) that is equipped with a Seagate 7200 rpm 160GB HD. The HD is marketed as capable of SATA II (3Gbps), but my W500 is only interfacing it with SATA I (1.5Gbps). Although I know that in practice the performance between SATA I and SATA II for a non SSD would be minimal but I still feel uneasy about it. Is there anything I can do about it?

[hazart]

As far as I know, W500 doesn't cap SATA speed by default. What is the model of your hard drive and how do you know it's capped at SATA I speed in your W500?

[mtissington]

You may also have a jumper on the drive itself which limits it ... if so, simply remove it.

[lead_org Microsoft MVP Contributor]

as said the W500 is not limited to SATAI speed, it is fully SATA II compatible. 

[Zuxy]

I opened the case to take a look at the disk today. It's a Seagate Momentus 7200.3 (model ST9160411AS ). I did a few googling and Seagate markets it as SATA II but the one on my machine is labeled as 1.5 Gb/sec :-( So it's a special OEM model designed for ThinkPad? Is it possible to upgrade it with a new firmware?

[lead_org Microsoft MVP Contributor]

Lenovo doesn't have the sort of firmware upgrade that you are after. 

[IPnaSh Guru]

Transfer rate is a chipset feature. If you update your BIOS, nothing will change.

Best regards.