SSD's on SATA II vs SATA III

[kbrady1979]

Here is an article I just read that has some awesome information in it. It compares a Samsung 840 Pro on a SATA III connection, and a SATA II connection, and to show you how much faster it is than a "normal" HDD, it tests a 10K RPM Velociraptor. They clearly say what numbers are important, and what numbers are just fluff. The tests also quantify how much faster an SSD is over a HDD. For all of you that aren't sold on the idea of an SSD, or don't know what the numbers mean.....do yourself a favor and spend a few minutes reading this article.

Is A SATA 3Gb/s Platform Still Worth Upgrading With An SSD?

 

[jimbo45]

Here is an article I just read that has some awesome information in it. It compares a Samsung 840 Pro on a SATA III connection, and a SATA II connection, and to show you how much faster it is than a "normal" HDD, it tests a 10K RPM Velociraptor. They clearly say what numbers are important, and what numbers are just fluff. The tests also quantify how much faster an SSD is over a HDD. For all of you that aren't sold on the idea of an SSD, or don't know what the numbers mean.....do yourself a favor and spend a few minutes reading this article.

Is A SATA 3Gb/s Platform Still Worth Upgrading With An SSD?

Hi there
Absolutely correct -- even if you have a SATA III 10,000 RPM Raptor HDD (and 99% of typical PC's out there won't have these) an SSD even on a SATA II port blows these away. A 10,000 RPM SATA III raptor isn't in any way a "Normal HDD". !!!

The author of that article is one of the really few who actually know what he's on about - unlike the mouthings and Ramblings that come so called technical consultants / think tanks - particularly GARTNER who everybody thinks speaks prophet like truth --fine if you can put up with 99% pure Bovine Scatology.

With the price of these now realistic and reliability perfectly good -- BUY YOURSELF at least one SSD ASAP -- you'll wonder why you ever took so long in making the switch.

Incidentally the article is quite informative too that if you use spinners for most real world applications the difference between SATA II and SATA III isn't that shattering at all.

Use cheap spinners for essentially Static Data --SSD's for OS, Application programs (execution files), scratch files for Photoshop etc and work spaces for DB queries etc.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[Dude]

Nice post Kelly, I read all the SSD post now as I await the arrival of mine. Jimbo I wonder why I took so long to make the switch, pretty sure I will be amazed.

 

[Britton30]

What held me back was the extreme expense which isn't so bad now. I can now buy two 64GB SSDs for what I paid for my first one.

 

[LittleJay]

Thanks for posting this Kelly. It was well worth the read.

 

[whs]

Measurements are always interesting and sometimes impressive. The real world though is a bit different.

The enormous OS performance boost you get from a SSD is mostly due to the fast random access time (typically 0.1ms versus an average of 15ms on a HDD). The OS does relatively few R/W operations and those are random and mostly in small 4K blocks. The access time in Sata II and Sata III are the same. They differ only in maximum transfer speeds.

But if you look at the tranfer speeds of 4K blocks even an OCZ Vector, which is one of the fastest today, is only around 300.000MB/sec which is well within the capability of a Sata II port (3Gb/sec). The odd larger blocks would be faster than the Sata II port can handle. So those would be bottlenecked.

The situation is, of course, different if you use the SSD for storing data that comes in large blocks. Then the Sata III capabilities (6Gb/sec) will be fully used. The large blocks on the Vector can run as high as 600.000MB/sec.

 

[kbrady1979]

I'm glad you guys found it interesting and informative. As whs said, and I have agreed with time and time again, the specs that manufacturers advertise are almost worthless for what we use SSD's for. The real world performance comes from Random 4K Read/Write(Queue Depth 1) numbers, and access times that are a fraction of even the fastest mechanical drives. Installing Windows and applications, unzipping and extracting files, and opening up programs are much faster due to those two factors. Those are the real world factors, and no hard drive comes close to an SSD when dealing with them.

Also, like Gary said, SSD's are so much more affordable now. My first SSD was the Intel X25-M 120GB gen 2 model. I had been wanting one for quite awhile, but gen 1 drives were still expensive, and too unreliable for my tastes. Then gen 2 drives came out, and I watched the Intel 120gb slowly drop from $280 to a tad over $200 and I snatched one up. Rock solid, and a hell of a performer.......and I was hooked. I only moved to the Samsung 830 when I built my new rig. I could have bought 2 of the Samsung 830 128gb SSD's for what I gave for my first Intel model!

 

[jimbo45]

I'm glad you guys found it interesting and informative. As whs said, and I have agreed with time and time again, the specs that manufacturers advertise are almost worthless for what we use SSD's for. The real world performance comes from Random 4K Read/Write(Queue Depth 1) numbers, and access times that are a fraction of even the fastest mechanical drives. Installing Windows and applications, unzipping and extracting files, and opening up programs are much faster due to those two factors. Those are the real world factors, and no hard drive comes close to an SSD when dealing with them.

Also, like Gary said, SSD's are so much more affordable now. My first SSD was the Intel X25-M 120GB gen 2 model. I had been wanting one for quite awhile, but gen 1 drives were still expensive, and too unreliable for my tastes. Then gen 2 drives came out, and I watched the Intel 120gb slowly drop from $280 to a tad over $200 and I snatched one up. Rock solid, and a hell of a performer.......and I was hooked. I only moved to the Samsung 830 when I built my new rig. I could have bought 2 of the Samsung 830 128gb SSD's for what I gave for my first Intel model!

Hi there
The Samsung 840 256 GB models (almost a step order faster than the excellent 830 series) are about the same price as the 830 120 GB models of last year and even a 512 GB model is out now for around 390 USD. Ok 390 USD isn't as cheap as a spinner but a few years ago a fast 512 GB SSD would have cost around 800 USD even if you could find one.

It won't be long now before we could replace ALL our spinners -- we aren't there quite yet but it won't be long.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[paulpicks21]

A great article Kelly, thanks for sharing.

And yes prices are really coming down, I paid £130 for a 60GB Corsair F60 when SSD's were pretty new, my 2nd SSD was a 64GB Crucial M4 for £72 and my 3rd was a 128GB Vertex 4 for £90.

 

[LMiller7]

Another advantage of SSD drives is the much greater resistance to mechanical shock. This is of particular importance for laptops and external drives, both of which tend to receive occasional rough treatment. Many a laptop HD has been seriously damaged by what was thought to be a minor fall. The apparent ruggedness of conventional drives tends to hide the fact that they are really quite fragile internally, particularly while running.

Be very sure you have a backup of all important files on an SSD. Many people never consider making a backup until a drive makes unusual noises or there are other warning signs. SSD drives tend to fail without warning and often with no apparent cause. Commercial data recovery is expensive for conventional drives but is even more so for SSDs.

There can be little doubt that SSDs will eventually replace conventional drives but there are many technical hurdles that must be overcome before that day arrives. Improved manufacturing techniques and higher sales will bring up capacity and reliability at a lower cost. Just as happened with conventional drives.

 

[whs]

Speaking of prices - my first 60GB OCZ Vertex was $260 in 2008. My last 60GB Mushkin was $59.95 and even for the 128GB OCZ Vector I only paid $129,95. And all my 7 SSDs still work very well (knock on wood). And those were all sale prices at Newegg where I buy all my stuff.

 

[Cristipit]

This seems to be the best place for finding a solution for my situation.
I've received a 256gb SSD Samsung Pro 840 and i want to buy a usb 3.0 external enclosure for it.
Probably you ask yourself why in the hell put it inside a external enclosure? Simply because i have another SSD inside my laptop, and i want this one to be used as a multiboot os drive(1st partition) and recovery space(2nd partition).
So my question is: for using it as an it technician tool for installing OS's ( iso virtual mointing as cd/dvd) and debugging, what kind of enclosure it needs? Sata II vs Sata III?
Thanks