Is SATA III worth upgrading my motherboard for?

[FuturDreamz]

As my system spec says I have a H61 motherboard, which only supports SATA II

When Ivy bridge comes out I plan on getting an i3 or i5 (whatever is suitable and has HD 4000) and a 60-100gb SSD for OS and applications (the 1TB will still be used for videos and stuff, and it is only SATA II)

I don't really do THAT much gaming, and I don't think I'll be doing anything that requires superduperfast read/write to the boot drive.

So: would SATA II be a bad bottleneck for my system?

thanks.

 

[badger906]

nah, youll still see a massive performance leap from an normal hard drive to an SSD. it certainly wont create a bottle neck.

 

[pparks1]

Technically, it will be the bottleneck. It's possible you won't reach max read/writes speeds because of the slower SATA 3.0gbps interface. However, the real benefit to the SSD is ultra low random access numbers and these won't be impacted by the slower 3.0gbps interface.

So, I wouldn't worry about it much, highly doubt you will really notice it.

 

[FuturDreamz]

What if I got two ~30gb SSDs and connected them via RAID0? That would offset the slower speed a bit, and I do have room I think (I'll have to build a frame as my case's slots are all filled up)

 

[Corazon]

Actually, you'll be better off with a single 60GB (or larger) SSD.

Those SSDs with very small capacities have a very limited number of discrete flash memory chips, so they can't use parallelization as much as the larger-capacity versions, and maximum read/write speeds are slower as a result.

If you've ever noticed on the product pages of various SSD models that higher-capacity drives also have faster transfer rates - this is why.

So, you wouldn't gain anything from RAIDing two small-capacity SSDs, except a slightly more complicated setup.

 

[smarteyeball]

So, you wouldn't gain anything from RAIDing two small-capacity SSDs, except a slightly more complicated setup.

Yep, not worth the effort.

 

[whs]

What if I got two ~30gb SSDs and connected them via RAID0? That would offset the slower speed a bit, and I do have room I think (I'll have to build a frame as my case's slots are all filled up)

As Corazon says, this is not a good deal and would be only warrented if you could get the two 30GB drives for a lot less money than one 60GB drive - or if you own them already.

 

[GeneO]

One SSD drive. The current SSD drives will be limited by SATA2. Get SATA3 if you are going to have an SSD.

 

[Corazon]

Not all SSDs are so fast that they'd benefit from a SATA-3 connection.

As a rule of thumb, I'd say if the SSD is rated at a maximum read or write speed around 275MB/sec or less, it'll be perfectly fine using SATA-2.

 

[FuturDreamz]

Just thought I'd ask.
how about something like this drive: Newegg.ca - OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD3-2VTX90G 3.5" 90GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
it's 3.5" so I don't have to jerry-rigg a carriage.

 

[badger906]

The fastest drives 500Mb/sec apparently run at around 4.5gbps (sorry if I got the abbreviation wrong lol) so even running on a sata2 port your not sacrificing all of its advantages. But that's if a sata3 drive would work on a sata2 port...

Sent from my BlackBerry 9900 using Tapatalk

 

[GeneO]

Not all SSDs are so fast that they'd benefit from a SATA-3 connection.

As a rule of thumb, I'd say if the SSD is rated at a maximum read or write speed around 275MB/sec or less, it'll be perfectly fine using SATA-2.

That is a good rule of thumb and almost all the current SSD benefit from SATA3 according to it. In fact, the Intel SATA3 chipset performs better than their older SATA2 even for speeds less than SATA2, including randoms.

 

[whs]

Just thought I'd ask.
how about something like this drive: Newegg.ca - OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD3-2VTX90G 3.5" 90GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
it's 3.5" so I don't have to jerry-rigg a carriage.

This looks like a good drive. But I would not choose an SSD because of the form factor. A 2.5" SSD can be easily installed - even with Velcro.

 

[badger906]

Corsairs range of SSD's come with 2.5" to 3.5" adaptor. These can be bought for peanuts online for other models.

On some builds I've screwed them to EATX mobo peg holes in a case that only has an ATX board lol.
Looks quite weird having them sat next to the mobo, but shows off the SSD if you have a case window

 

[whs]

Corsairs range of SSD's come with 2.5" to 3.5" adaptor. These can be bought for peanuts online for other models.

On some builds I've screwed them to EATX mobo peg holes in a case that only has an ATX board lol.
Looks quite weird having them sat next to the mobo, but shows off the SSD if you have a case window

My last OCZ Vertex also came with an adaptor.