SATA II or SATA III ?? Confused.

[Raizinman]

I'm new at this SSD and have been reading the forums for a short while. I am looking for a 160 to 220 Gb SSD for my desktop. Some brands are SATA II and some are SATA III. Am I better off with a SATA III? Does this come with the drive or is this SATA III purchased seperately? I was looking at the Vertex 3 or perhaps the Crucial. I just wanted to know that if I purchase this, is that all I need (everything needed for the install is in the box)?

I'm installing this on a 1 year old computer. MSI motherboard with 8 Gigs RAM, MSI Video Card R5450, 1.5 TB HD. AMD Phenom II quad core. Running Windows 7.

 

[Blain]

Better with SATA III?
* Yes, but your MB may not support SATA III speed
Does it come with everything?
* Depends on if you buy a retail box or OEM version. OEM drives are just bare drives.

 

[gpse]

sata III or sata II will work with your mobo, I would get sata III to be futureproof.

 

[996GT2]

Honest, you're not going to notice a real performance difference in everyday use between an SSD hooked up to a SATA II port or one hooked up to a SATA III port. Hard drives aren't even close to saturating the SATA II standard yet, so you're good there too.

If you want to be more future-proof, then by all means get a SATA III SSD. If there's a good deal on a fast SATA II SSD like the Intel X-25M or Corsair F series, then there is no problem in going with one of those instead.

 

[stevech]

My desktop has a 64GB SSD and an eSATA 1TB for data.
After almost a year of heavy daily use, lots of development tools and apps, the SSD is not half full. I'm careful to remember where to store stuff.

 

[Raizinman]

I just checked out my motherboard specs:

On-Board SATA

• 5 SATA II ports by AMD® SB710
• 1 eSATA II port by AMD® SB710
- Supports storage and data transfers at up to 3Gb/s


RAID Function

- SATA II 1~5 support RAID 0, 1, 0+1 or JBOD mode by AMD® SB710


It appears that SATA II is my maximum if I am reading this correctly.

 

[Pravius]

SATA will auto negotiate speeds. So while you may not be getting the speed of SATA III you will be able to use it. As one person mention by getting SATA III you will be "future proofing" yourself for when you decide to upgrade to a motherboard that supports SATA III.

 

[Raizinman]

Sorry but just not familiar with SATA. Is it the same plug for SATA II and SATA III? So even if my mother board does not support SATA III, you are saying that I can still purchase a SATA III and it will run at the SATA II speed?

Does this install with using a slot on the mother board or a ribbon cable like the hard drive?

Thanks

 

[sticks435]

Yes, that is what I am doing right now until by new MB get's here with Sata 3 support.

It's a plug on either end and a shielded plastic cable. You plug one end into the connector on the Mobo and the other into the SSD. Some cables have locks so the cable doesn't fall out.