MacBook Pro 13- And 15-Inch Limited To SATA Not SATA-II?

MacBook Pro confusion this weekend, as some owners of the new unibody 13- and 15-inch notebooks are reporting that their machines are apparently limited to 1.5Gb/s SATA connections rather than the faster 3.0Gb/s SATA-II.  Full details are unclear, but it seems that Apple have either switched to SATA hardware or used firmware for the newest MacBook Pros that limits hard-drive connections to the slower speed.

The move has the most impact on those who upgraded to the SSD option in their new MacBook Pro.  Regular hard-drives, which the notebooks are both fitted with as standard, will prove unaffected, as the read/write speeds of the drive are slower than SATA.  However SSDs, which can manage higher sustained read rates, are clocking in with lower speeds compared to previous-generation MacBooks and MacBook Pros.

Any impact on real-world performance, however, is unknown.  Transferring files to external drives would be limited by the USB/Firewire connection rather than the choice of SATA or SATA-II.  It's possible that a new firmware update could "unlock" the faster connectivity, but so far Apple have not publicly commented.

[via Register Hardware]