Does it matter that the buffer size is double? Can XP handle the larger buffer size no problem?
Shouldn't be a problem.
What matters here is whether or not your motherboard supports SATA II. If not you will not get the full performance the drive offers but it should still work.
By "SATA II" I assume you mean
SATA 3.0 Gbit/s (versus
SATA 1.5 Gbit/s)...? My computer is over 4 years old, so I don't know which my motherboard supports. Are the connectors the same? Will there be any issues using a newer hard drive on an old motherboard?
Wiki reports: "SATA is designed to be backward and forward compatible with future revisions of the SATA standard. According to the hard drive manufacturer Maxtor, motherboard host controllers using the VIA and SIS chipsets VT8237, VT8237R, VT6420, VT6421L, SIS760, SIS964 found on the ECS 755-A2 which was manufactured in 2003, do not support SATA 3Gb/s drives. To address interoperability problems, the largest hard drive manufacturer Seagate/Maxtor have added a user-accessible jumper-switch known as the Force 150, to switch between 150 MB/s and 300 MB/s operation. Users with a SATA 1.5Gb/s motherboard with one of the listed chipsets should either buy an ordinary SATA 1.5Gb/s hard disk, buy a SATA 3Gb/s hard disk with the user-accessible jumper, or buy a PCI or PCI-E card to add full SATA 3Gb/s capability and compatibility. Western Digital uses jumper setting called "OPT1 Enabled" to force 150 MB/s data transfer speed."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA