# SATA 3 SSD in SATA 2 System?



## stinger608 (Oct 26, 2014)

Wondering if this would be worth it:

I have my trusty ole Gateway P7811FX laptop that I have upgraded the processor and memory to the maximum level. I am running dual Western Digital 320 gig Scorpio Blacks in RAID 0. 

The system is still pretty snappy so no real issue there. 

My question and wonder is; would it be worth putting a newer SATA III Crucial M4 SSD in the system? Its getting long in the tooth and runs a Core2Duo processor. Of course being about 5 years old it only supports SATA II. It does have DDR3. 

I just don't know if it would give me a large increase in performance over the mechanical drives or not?


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## Kursah (Oct 26, 2014)

It would give you plenty of increase over a mechanical drive... a small part of SSD's imho is throughput. The biggest noticeable factor imho is response time, which is almost instant. Sure throughput is a BIG deal, but honestly the response to finding and reading files in a situation like a bootable-OS drive is what you'll notice and add some snappiness to your system. I say GO FOR IT. Then when you upgrade to a system with SATA 3 support, you'll have a drive that can utilize that possible throughput as well.

Also, the power consumption will be substantially less compared to 2 drives in RAID0, for the same or better throughput, generally better and much better seek/response times. It's a win/win on a performance/efficiency standpoint imho.


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## OneMoar (Oct 26, 2014)

I would't waste money on a m4 get one of the MX drives


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## The Von Matrices (Oct 26, 2014)

Your situation is very similar to what I experienced.

I own a Sony Vaio Z with Core 2 Duo P8700, and I replaced its 7200RPM HDD with a 512GB Crucial M4 SSD about two years ago.  Honestly, I wasn't very impressed with the performance difference.  What I thought was slow performance due to the hard drive was actually slow due to the processor.  In hindsight I shouldn't have replaced the HDD and just saved money for a new laptop.  Loading modern websites is slow on the laptop and playing a 720P video requires nearly 100% CPU, killing battery life.  The SSD is fast, but the rest of the laptop can't keep up making the performance improvement negligable.

Another thing to consider is that if you ever replace the laptop in the future, the SATA SSD will probably be worthless since new laptops use M.2 SSDs instead of 2.5" disks.


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## stinger608 (Oct 26, 2014)

Thanks guys for the responses!  Its still a toss up. 





OneMoar said:


> I would't waste money on a m4 get one of the MX drives



I already have said drive.


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## Mussels (Oct 26, 2014)

maybe grab one of those seagate SSHD's and go for that, since they're cheaper but also a lot faster than a regular drive?


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## stinger608 (Oct 26, 2014)

Mussels said:


> maybe grab one of those seagate SSHD's and go for that, since they're cheaper but also a lot faster than a regular drive?



I had actually thought about doing that, however I ended up with this 256 gig Crucial M4 and just don't know if it is worth installing it and reinstalling Windows.


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## Liquid Cool (Oct 26, 2014)

Stinger608...

I upgrade a lot of the old celeron/pentium laptops from the 2007-9 era with Core 2 Duo's, max out the memory, and usually install either a used Intel X25-M or 320 series ssd(dirt cheap on ebay).  The difference in operation is like night and day.  

Although....If you've already upgraded the cpu and the memory, plus you're running raided WD Blacks...I don't think the difference would be all that spectacular.  Might improve your startup on programs and boot times a tad...but I definitely wouldn't expect much.

Personally, I think it's pretty cool you can run raid 0 on that laptop.  I would be happy with that, but I know what it's like to want to squeeze that last ounce of performance from an older machine.

FWIW's...I've run plenty of SATA III ssds on sata II laptops without consequence.  Primarily the Samsung 830/840 series ssds.

Best,

LC


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## stinger608 (Oct 26, 2014)

Thanks LC and everyone else that has made comments. 
I guess it couldn't hurt to try.  If I don't see that much of a difference I can just go back to the WD Raid 0 and use the SSD in a different system.


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## chuck216 (Oct 26, 2014)

If you're going for an SSD go all out and get a Samsung 840 EVO


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## Tatty_One (Oct 26, 2014)

I had an M4 plugged into my old x58 board and it was a fair bit snappier, really did notice the difference but then again I was not running Raid0 beforehand I suppose.


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## Ferrum Master (Oct 26, 2014)

Anyway the most juice are in the 4K writes, not the large chunks. The snappier feeling comes form large IOPS and still better those numbers the better the feeling, no matter SATA2 or 3.

My suggestion, grab the one that has the most warranty period at your turf...


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## stinger608 (Oct 27, 2014)

Well I went ahead and installed the 4M drive. Huge difference in boot time. At this moment its hard to say on programs and such as it took pretty much all frigging day just to update Windows 8.1 and get all the drivers installed. 

However I do notice a sizable difference in just clicking and maneuvering around in Windows. 

If I was to make a comparison of the two systems I would put:

WD Scorpio Black 320 gigs in RAID 0 (6.5/10)

Crucial M4 256 gig SSD (8.75/10)

My comparison is figuring a full newer system that supports SATA III of course. 

Overall not bad. I will probably do more testing on the system tomorrow after I get home from work. Don't really use the laptop all that much but it sure as heck seems a lot "snappier" than it did with the mechanical drives.


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## Mighty_Miro_WD (Oct 27, 2014)

Hi there.

Yes, you can connect a SATA 3.0 6Gb/s solid state drive to a SATA 2.0 3 Gb/s port on your motherboard. The SATA 3.0 6Gb/s ssd's are backward compatible with SATA 2.0 3Gb/s ports. However, performance will be restricted to SATA 2.0 levels.

For instance when your SSD is connected to SATA 6Gb/s port, it could reach up to 550/500 MB/s sequential read and sequential write speed rates respectively. But when the drive is connected to SATA 3 Gb/s port, it could reach up to 285/275 MB/s sequential read and sequential write speed rates respectively.

Hope this helps.

Cheers!


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## Jetster (Oct 27, 2014)

Nothing wrong with that


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