how to use sata 3 hdd on sata 2 port mobo

[Abhilash Dey]

my mobo is asus m5a78l/usb3.
i bot wd caviar green 1tb sata 3 6gb/s hdd with 64mb cache. how to use it with my mobo? i m currently using an old wd caviar 500gb 32mb cache sata 2 hdd

 

[popatim]

Just plug it in. the motherbd and drive will communicate with each other and the hdd will switch to sata2 mode all by itself.

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hey there, Abhilash Dey!

@popatim is right, you can simply plug your new WD Green in the system and use it even if your motherboard has only SATA II (3 Gb/s) ports. Even if it did, a mechanical hard drive can barely reach the maximum transfer rate of the SATA II port, let alone a SATA III ( 6 Gb/s) one. Once you plug it in the system and boot, it should be recognized in Disk Management. There you can simply initialize the HDD and then partition & format it for your intended purpose. Here are a couple of tutorials from our KB that might shed some light on these steps:
Step 1 - Initialize: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=04UJEk
Step 2 - Partition & Format: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=A9w3nU

Hope it helps! Best of luck!
SuperSoph_WD