Can HDD Caddy reduce drives speed?

linux hard-drive ssd sata

5,223

No, the caddy is not lowering your data transfer speeds.

The issue you are having is actually very common and is by design. Some laptops, especially in older ones, suffer from this. Manufacturers often use a different SATA controller for the optical drive. Since, optical drives cannot transfer at SATA3 speeds, they save money and use a SATA1 or SATA2 controller for that port.

5,223

Ravexina

I have studied software engineering and artificial intelligence. I Love *nix operating systems, programming, learning and of course... Music :) I'm a MOD at AU, and if you have any question or concern about my decisions/actions, please post them at: https://meta.askubuntu.com and not to my emāil. If you like to contact me, my Ǧmāil is same as my Ūsĕrņame ;) Please don't Ask your questions using ĕmāil... thanks :-)

Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

Ravexina over 1 year
I'm running Ubuntu on my laptop, running dmesg states that:
```
dmesg | grep SATA
[    6.785571] ahci 0000:00:1f.2: AHCI 0001.0300 32 slots 6 ports 6 Gbps 0x5 impl SATA mode
[    7.161172] ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m2048@0xf261c000 port 0xf261c100 irq 26
[    7.212366] ata3: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m2048@0xf261c000 port 0xf261c200 irq 26
[    7.627191] ata1: SATA link up 6.0 Gbps (SStatus 133 SControl 300)
[    7.627209] ata3: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 300)
```
And both my HDD and SSD are capable of working at SATA 3.

However doesn't matter which one I put in caddy instead of my optical disk, both will work at SATA 2 and my system's load average goes up weirdly.

So my question is that, is it possible for a HDD caddy causing this problem?
```
Optical bay [SATA3] = -|
                       |
        |--------------|
        |
        | Caddy [SATA2]
        |
        |--------------|
                       |
Hard Disk   [SATA3] = -|
```
As I know Caddy is just like a bridge and doesn't know or do anything about SATA2/SATA3, so why when I put something in optical bay it works at SATA 2 and not 3?
- Shayan almost 4 years
  
  How old was your laptop? I have a 2015 Asus N552 VW, I wonder if it supports a Sata3 controller.
Ravexina almost 5 years

Thanks, I was suspecting that and I already have read this. However dmesg output made me think that it might be caddy and not the optical drive's interface.
Keltari almost 5 years

@Ravexina what is the complete output of dmesg | grep SATA
Ravexina almost 5 years

Updated the question, The first line made me think that all my interfaces are SATA 3 (6Gbps) and caddy is causing the second drive to work at SATA 2 (3Gbps).
Keltari almost 5 years

@Ravexina No, that is not what it means. The last line shows the speed is 3 Gbps, which is SATA2
Ravexina almost 5 years

SATA 2 should be enough for an HDD right? I think I wasted my money on SSD.
Keltari almost 5 years

@Ravexina SATA2 is far faster than any mechanical hard drive. I would never consider a SSD a waste. Its lighter, has faster throughput, has no seek time, uses less power, is quieter, etc.
Ravexina almost 5 years

Thanks for your time ;)
Shayan almost 4 years

How can I find out for sure that my laptop supports a Sata3 controller? I have an Asus N552 VW