Advice needed on adding SSD to HDD+cache drive system

[docdaddy]

Currently have a laptop with a 750 GB HDD. It also has a 64 GB mSATA SSD set up as a cache drive for the HDD. BIOS is set to RAID. As you might expect, these are running in SATA 2 (3 Gb/s) mode.

I want to install my new 840 Pro 512 GB SSD and hopefully have it run in SATA 3 (6Gb/s) mode, independent of the other two drives which will remain.

Will the new drive be forced to run at slower SATA2 mode even though I will not set up in the new drive in any array with the other two drives?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Whether or not your new SSD will run at SATA6G speeds, depends entirely on the system chipset powering the SATA ports, and how the ports are physically wired to that chipset.

Modern Intel chipsets support only two SATA6G ports, and oftentimes for power reasons, these ports are either unused, or throttled down to SATA2 speeds in the BIOS.

 

[docdaddy]

Whether or not your new SSD will run at SATA6G speeds, depends entirely on the system chipset powering the SATA ports, and how the ports are physically wired to that chipset.

Modern Intel chipsets support only two SATA6G ports, and oftentimes for power reasons, these ports are either unused, or throttled down to SATA2 speeds in the BIOS.

The laptop (Alienware M17x) supports the SATA6G port, but I don't understand well enough to know if RAID will automatically slow the SATA6G SSD down to the SATA3G speed of the other drive (mSATA) even if the two drives are not in an array together.

 

[kbp]

Raid will not slow the drive down to SATS2 speeds unless is is built into a SATA2 drive array. In your case it is not thus no problem with SATA3 speeds.