Jumper or Firmware to change interface from SATA 3 to SATA 2

When it becomes available I would like to put one of the new 1.5Tb 2.5 inch HDD in the optical bay of my 2011 MacBook Pro. Although the optical bay interface is spec’d and reports as SATA 3, it is well known that SATA 3 SSD (and I suspect HDD) do not work in the optical bay. SATA 2 devices do work in the optical bay.

Is there any possibility of being able to downgrade to SATA 2 by firmware or jumpers ?

I know that an SATA 3 device connected to an SATA 2 controller will just work fine at SATA 2 speeds, but that is not the situation here, because it really is an SATA 3 controller that works fine with an optical drive, but not an SSD or HDD.

Thanks for any inputs.

These are fully interchangeable! No need to flip a switch or set a jumper:

SATA 1 through SATA III devices work with SATA I to SATA III controllers.

Only downside is, that you might experience a performance loss if you connect a SATAIII devices with an older SATA II or SATA I controller. But it will still work!

David64 wrote:

These are fully interchangeable! No need to flip a switch or set a jumper:

SATA 1 through SATA III devices work with SATA I to SATA III controllers.

 

Only downside is, that you might experience a performance loss if you connect a SATAIII devices with an older SATA II or SATA I controller. But it will still work!

I know this in general true, but it is well documented that SATA 3 devices don’t work in the optical bay of 2011 MacBook Pros. Hence my aim to make it into an SATA 2 device.

not possible. if apple decides not to follow standards, there isn’t anything you can do except avoiding this horrible shut-in closed-off system manufacturer (yes, I do hate apple).

you could look for some hacked or updated firmware that fixes that laptop of yours, but I highly doubt that…

mhh, maybe i was wrong, but this allows you to limit the transfer rate of SATA 2 and 3 drives:

https://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/981/c/123/session/L3RpbWUvMTM3MzExMDk0My9zaWQvOUJORTN4dWw%3D#satadesktopjump

I doubt it makes a SATA 2 drive out of SATA 3, but this might suffice to make it compatible with the mac port

EDIT: apparently not available on 2.5" drives. so scratch that!

Thanks for trying David!

I have sidetepped the problem of not being able to have a faster HD in the optical bay by creating a  Fusion Drive from my 960 Gb M500 SSD and slow 1Tb HD. Working a treat, but there are draw backs to a having a single, non partitionable 1.95 Tb volume on a laptop!

 EDIT Can’t make in text link work above so here is full link about Fusion Drive: 

http://www.techradar.com/news/computing-components/storage/fusion-drive-what-it-is-and-how-it-speeds-up-your-mac-1154051