SSD in SATA 2 mobo?

pavel

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I read that having a SSD in an older gen system, you have a bit of a speed penalty (because of the controller) and you can't do much to offset this - even if you get one of those pci or pci-e SATA cards. Is that true?

I'm trying to slowly build a new system and trying to decide if:

A) I'm keeping the old one - LGA 775/P45 mobo and 8gb DDR2
B) keeping any current components and possibly buying something new that can transfer - e.g. current PSU (150mm - I think) - maybe FUTURE SSD - gtx 750 video card - to name some examples
C) selling the old one - I think they aren't worth much now - DDR2 RAM sticks, mobo and cpu - probably only components that would fetch some $$ and probably not much

So, I am wondering if buying a SSD would make any sense right now. I would like a faster drive and it can easily transfer to a new system. It seems the new tech. (SATA Express and M.2) is progressing slowly and will be kinda expensive as it gets released?

Also, I really want a smaller system. I have a mid tower and am glad I didn't get an full-size ATX case (I was wanting to upgrade/new build earlier :) ) and so I have a chance to decide. But, I find the choices for Mini-ITX motherboards to be rather thin. I'm thinking to just get cheap ones (For e.g. H97 and non-overclocknig but semi-powerful cpu)

But, I don't know which order to go with (for purchases). I had the idea, that the components that can be used with the current system and most easily transferable is what to do first.

Any ideas or thoughts? Finally, what speed penalty would I get? It'll still be much faster than my HDDs, I am assuming. If I went for a EVO 250GB, it would work fine but I'd get a speed hit but how much? The 250GB is around $150 so I have to figure out if that's too much $$ if I have to use it for a while with the older gen. hardware.
 
I read that having a SSD in an older gen system, you have a bit of a speed penalty (because of the controller) and you can't do much to offset this - even if you get one of those pci or pci-e SATA cards. Is that true?

I'm trying to slowly build a new system and trying to decide if:

A) I'm keeping the old one - LGA 775/P45 mobo and 8gb DDR2
B) keeping any current components and possibly buying something new that can transfer - e.g. current PSU (150mm - I think) - maybe FUTURE SSD - gtx 750 video card - to name some examples
C) selling the old one - I think they aren't worth much now - DDR2 RAM sticks, mobo and cpu - probably only components that would fetch some $$ and probably not much

So, I am wondering if buying a SSD would make any sense right now. I would like a faster drive and it can easily transfer to a new system. It seems the new tech. (SATA Express and M.2) is progressing slowly and will be kinda expensive as it gets released?

Also, I really want a smaller system. I have a mid tower and am glad I didn't get an full-size ATX case (I was wanting to upgrade/new build earlier :) ) and so I have a chance to decide. But, I find the choices for Mini-ITX motherboards to be rather thin. I'm thinking to just get cheap ones (For e.g. H97 and non-overclocknig but semi-powerful cpu)

But, I don't know which order to go with (for purchases). I had the idea, that the components that can be used with the current system and most easily transferable is what to do first.

Any ideas or thoughts? Finally, what speed penalty would I get? It'll still be much faster than my HDDs, I am assuming. If I went for a EVO 250GB, it would work fine but I'd get a speed hit but how much? The 250GB is around $150 so I have to figure out if that's too much $$ if I have to use it for a while with the older gen. hardware.

Hi, pavel,

I run 2 LGA 775 rigs with Crucial C300s on SATA2 as my boot drives and have a couple of SATA3 SSDs waiting to be installed when I get the time to get rid of my remaining HDDs.

Going SSD is, to me, a "no-brainer" as it is the best upgrade available. Just cutting down on the noise of a HDD is a vast improvement. The faster boot speeds also make it worthwhile, IMO.

I wouldn't worry too much about the new m2 etc. drives that will be all the rage.

Hope this helps.
 
Keep in mind, the vast majority of the perceived speed benefit of solid state drives comes not from the sequential transfer speed, but from the lack of seek time caused by a physical spinning disk. SSDs excel in quickly locating and accessing disparate bits of data from across the entire disk, whereas such behavior on a physical disk can be highly inefficient due to the need to physically move the drive head around the spinning disks.
So, while running on SATA2 you won't get the 500+ MB/s benchmarks of your SATA3 brethren, you will still feel quite zippy in day to day operation.
 
I put a 128GB Samsung 830 in an old X2 3800+ with a nVidia 6150 chipset and it made it feel like a much more modern performer. Do it, as you will have zero regrets.
 
A solution would be to install a SATA controller that do SATA3 on a PCIe slot.

That is what I did recently with my Asus Rampage III extreme to have full speed out of my SATA3 HDD and SSD.

You need a PCIe 8x slot.

Look at IBM M1015 controllers. You can buy them for around 60$USD on ebay.
 
The answer is that loading Windows Drivers, config files, or EXE's at even half of SATA 1 speeds makes for a very nice experience on a computer.
 
A solution would be to install a SATA controller that do SATA3 on a PCIe slot.

That is what I did recently with my Asus Rampage III extreme to have full speed out of my SATA3 HDD and SSD.

You need a PCIe 8x slot.

Look at IBM M1015 controllers. You can buy them for around 60$USD on ebay.

You lose in access times with that card, for SSDs you need fastpath only available on much more expensive cards.
 
Keep in mind, the vast majority of the perceived speed benefit of solid state drives comes not from the sequential transfer speed, but from the lack of seek time caused by a physical spinning disk. SSDs excel in quickly locating and accessing disparate bits of data from across the entire disk, whereas such behavior on a physical disk can be highly inefficient due to the need to physically move the drive head around the spinning disks.
So, while running on SATA2 you won't get the 500+ MB/s benchmarks of your SATA3 brethren, you will still feel quite zippy in day to day operation.

Good explanation right here. To add to that:

OS consumer usage relies heavily on low queue depth random reads and writes, typically at a QD of 5 or less. At those low QDs, the transfer speeds of nearly all consumer SSDs do not exceed SATA II speeds, so it wouldn't matter whether you have SATA III or SATA II for a general purpose consumer SSD.
 
In other words, just buy a SSD and use it on your SATA2 ports and you'll be happy. Definitely don't spring money for an external controller card.
 
I am running a ssd on my amd64 5000+ system that is my main computer and it makes a ton of difference over a hdd.
It is slower than on a sata3 controller in benchmarks but it is very fast in day to day use.
Just go for it and connect it to your sata2 controller.
You will be glad you did.
 
I own a M1015 and two 9240, yet on my main rig (for a few weeks/months still) my SSD isn't connected on it, but on the Intel SATA2. Because using a PCIe controller without fastpath slows down an SSD instead of speeding it up.

Sooo, you're telling me that your SSD is faster on the Intel SATA2 controller than on the M1015 (LSI 9240-8i) PCIe 8x?
 
I own a M1015 and two 9240, yet on my main rig (for a few weeks/months still) my SSD isn't connected on it, but on the Intel SATA2. Because using a PCIe controller without fastpath slows down an SSD instead of speeding it up.

It's not a problem inherent to PCI-E controllers, just the way LSI controllers work.

But yeah, Intel controllers are some of the best - if not THE best - SATA controllers available (if you don't want hardware RAID, anyway).

In general a SSD will work well on a system that offers AHCI. Some older boards may have a hidden option for AHCI that can be unlocked (see bios-mods and mydigitallife forums for info on that).

An SSD should still be better than a HDD on ANY SATA controller, but the difference won't be as big on old controllers in IDE mode.
 
Sooo, you're telling me that your SSD is faster on the Intel SATA2 controller than on the M1015 (LSI 9240-8i) PCIe 8x?

It should be faster in 4K low queue depth operations (that are 80+% of all operations on a typical desktop) because of the lower latency. Whether the difference is noticeable to the user is a different matter.
 
Intel SATA2 ICH10R controller with 1x OCZ Solid3 60GB SSD
19_intel_single_drive_anvil.png


IBM M1015 (LSI 9240-8i) with 1x OCZ Solid3 60GB SSD
18_9240_single_drive_raid0_anvil.png


REF: http://www.servethehome.com/ibm-serveraid-m1015-part-2-performance-lsi-92208i/
 
The numbers do show a small 4K low queue depth read benefit for using the Intel controller. Although I would have expected the difference to be larger however its not like they are testing a 1TB Samsung 850 pro here.
 
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