Hello:
The SATA port is purely descriptive of the type of interface, the following I II & III describe not only the generation of the drive/port, they also indicate the speed at which transfers are made, with I being the first generation and slowest transfer type.
SATA drives and motherboard interfaces are all backward compatable, meaning the latest generation can still handle the earliest generation drives and ports, SATA I and SATA II all work with SATA III drives/ports. But the earlier drives/ports had slower transfer rates which will limit the maximum speed. Drives or ports cannot exceed the lowest speed limitations of their combination.
Otherwise the SATA interface is backwards compatible with earlier SATA generations so they can be mixed and don't need to be matched.
Just remember that transfer speed will always be limited to the slowest drive/interface combination.
The generations I II & III are indicators of transfer speed, I=1.5Gb/s, II=3Gb/s, III=6Gb/s
Neither Drives nor Motherboards are forward compatable regarding speed, but will still recognize the drive and function, just at the slowest drive/port speed.
For instance, you can't by a SATA II Mobo and a SATA III drive and expect SATA III speeds.
But alwhtough we can get very close at times, in the real worls no one actually gets the rated transfer speeds because of other limiting factors.
Hope this helps
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