SATAIII drive on a SATAII controller

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C

CU

Platinum Member
Aug 14, 2000
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Does it make any sense to spend more for a smaller SATA III drive over a larger SATA II drive when the controller is only SATA II? If it matters I need an OS and a few small programs drive for an ECS H61H2-M2 motherboard.
 
C

CU

Platinum Member
Aug 14, 2000
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emptyshell said:
If it's SSD then go SATAIII. If it's spindle then it doesn't matter.
Click to expand...

Forgot to mention this is for an SSD. Why SATA III if the controller is SATA II? Do SATA II drives not max out a SATA II controller, or are the new drives just more reliable, etc.?
 
T_Yamamoto

T_Yamamoto

Lifer
Jul 6, 2011
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CU said:
Forgot to mention this is for an SSD. Why SATA III if the controller is SATA II? Do SATA II drives not max out a SATA II controller, or are the new drives just more reliable, etc.?
Click to expand...

Sata3 is faster. Sata3 ssd will only run as fast as sata2.
 
lehtv

lehtv

Elite Member
Dec 8, 2010
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Does it make any sense to spend more for a smaller SATA III drive over a larger SATA II drive when the controller is only SATA II?
Click to expand...

If you're on a SATA II board, they're going to be about the same speed. The SATA III SSD could still be marginally faster by making better use of the available bandwidth due to being newer and faster in general. But it is true that you probably wouldn't notice a difference between them outside of benchmarking even when connected to SATA III.

Exactly what drives are you considering? Where are you buying from?
 
G

greenhawk

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Feb 23, 2011
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for future upgradability it can be worth going sata 3, but then if looking at cheap drives, a cheap sata 3 can be worse overall in real world tasks than a good sata 2 drive.

But generally, a sata 3 drive on a sata 2 controller will work basically the same as a sata 2 drive.
 
G

greenhawk

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Feb 23, 2011
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JohnnyChuttz said:
Get a SATA3 Pci card:
Click to expand...

Can help in some cases, but not always.

With a gen1 pci-e slot the over all speed will be slower than sata 2 and that is assuming you are using only one drive on the card. If using 2 drives, that total speed is shared between the two drives.

If using a gen2 slot, max speed is closer to 500MB/s which is slower than sata 3's 600MB/s so will crimp a sata 3 ssd's full speed slightly. Down side is that the 500MB/s is shared between the two connectors so it is possible with 2 SSD's to have a speed that is slower than sata 2 for both drives.
 
Z

Zorander

Golden Member
Nov 3, 2010
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I'd go with a SATA3 drive. If you decide to upgrade the system, the drive can be moved to the new system and you won't have to grapple with the inevitable question: "how limited am I in using a SATA2 drive on a SATA3 port?" ;)

In fact, this is what I have done exactly (Crucial M4 on P55 chipset)
 
TakeNoPrisoners

TakeNoPrisoners

Platinum Member
Jun 3, 2011
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The main reason to get a SATA 3 SSD is that they have better firmware and controllers that are more reliable then older SATA 2 SSDs.
 
cmdrdredd

cmdrdredd

Lifer
Dec 12, 2001
27,052
357
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I run an SATA III SSD on SATA II and it's fine. I lose about 100MB/s but it's not noticeable in real world.
 
M

MacGyverSG1

Member
May 11, 2012
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A larger SATA II drive could be faster than a SATA III drive. The larger drives use more channels so they perform faster. A 120GB SATA II drive will typically be faster than a 64GB SATA III drive on a SATA II port.

I would choose the largest drive. The more free space you have also plays a role in the drives speed.

That HyperX drive is decent. Perfect for a boot drive.
 
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