Limit SATA to 2.0/3Gbps

[BetYourBottom]

I was wondering if there was a way to limit my devices to SATA2.0 aka the 3Gbps connection level. I have found that I get weird connection errors on my particular hardware when my HDDs connect at SATA3.

 

[Samuel Tai]

Back in the old days, you could set jumpers or DIP switches on your drives to hard-code the connection speed. Nowadays, there's no way to do this. In all likelihood, you have bad cables or connectors.

 

[BetYourBottom]

Back in the old days, you could set jumpers or DIP switches on your drives to hard-code the connection speed. Nowadays, there's no way to do this. In all likelihood, you have bad cables or connectors.

I understand that thought but back in the day when this problem initially arose, I tried swapping the cables several times and replaced the backplane with one of the same model. I can't remember atm but I think I may have even tried a spare HBA with it.

My theory is that the backplane, being 1:1, doesn't mess with the data at all but isn't designed to take the higher speed signaling of SATA3. So when a drive runs at SATA2 on it you get weird errors from interference or something.

I have some 4TB WD Reds from like 4 years ago that didn't work properly with it but I could use their jumpers to force a legacy SATA2 mode. My new 14TB drives unfortunately have only a single jumper that I have no idea what they do. It's looking like I'm going to either need a software solution, a backplane with a different design or just move to a new server entirely.