Are SATA II drives backward compatible to SATA I?

They are backward compatible.  Some of the laptop sata hard drives have a jumper on them to set SATA150 or SATA300..

some automatically detect it.

 

Good luck on your upgrade!

 

 

I opted for the Seagates ( i was strictly a WD guy, but these seagates are very nice and fast ) oh yeah.. mine had the jumpers on them to change from SATA150 to SATA300.. heres a link to the drives I currently have in my system

 

Seagate 7200rpm 200Gb

Thats the exact same drive I am looking at. Actually, I am torn. Since I don't use this computer for much other than basic stuff (no gaming, or anything that's all that tasking on the system), I am wondering if I should step down to a 5400rpm drive that will run cooler, and draw less power, plus, I can get a larger drive too. Seagates, ST903203N1A2AS-RK looks just right for that purpose. Would I notice much of a performance drop between the two with basic computer use?

 

And there's the WD Scorpio series which looks really nice. Anyone reading this own one of those? I'd love to know if any of these drives we are discussing are more reliable or efficient than the others.

So you went from a single 200g drive to a RAID 0 setup with 2 320g drives?

i looked at them both and opted for wd scorpio black, same specs, but am wd fan.  I actually purchased two 320 gb, 7200 rpm, sata II, with freefall sensor.  I dont know if it is because i run x64 or what, but it is much faster than the x32 on the oem seagate 200 gb, 7200 rpm.   

no, i actually ordered the one, with freefall sensor, and found out it wasnt available yet.(the place i ordered from, sent me an email, saying they didnt know when it would be available and the order would be cancelled after 30 days of unavailability) so i ordered the one without freefall sensor.  I got both the same day. I installed the one with freefall in laptop and installed vista ultimate 64 on it.  the other one i put in an enclosure for storage.  I now have 2 seagates, one 160 gb, 7200 rpm for ubuntu, 1 200 oem seagate 7200 rpm with oem vista ultimate x32, 1 320 wd with vista ulltimate x64 and 1 320 wd for storage. 

So you got the one with freefall sensor? I looked all over the place last night and couldn't find anyone selling them yet, and was hearing that they wouldn't be out until next month so I ordered the regular one.

i pre ordered it from Macmall, and got one of the first ones i guess.  It was 195.00 which included delivery. I have had it for a month now.  every place i googled, said no stock and couldnt give est delivery date.  I firmly believe in free-fall sensor.  My grandbaby pulled my new laptop off kitchen table and it hit the corner, on ceramic tile,right where the hard drive is.  I repaired the damage to the outside, the computer shut off and i restarted it and everything worked fine. (this happened to the oem hard drive, momentus(seagate), 200 gb, 7200rpm) I had already ordered the wd before this happened. I still have this oem hard drive with oem x32 ultimate installed on it.  I can exchange hard drives and run 32 bit ultimate with media direct.