Inspiron 1525 - can perform SATA II speed?

Hi,

I've just started to refresh and upgrade my old 1525 (RAM, processor). I have last step to do - change stock HDD (160GB, 5400rpm) to something faster (bigger is not main priority). I've tried to find over internet is this laptop really work with SATA II speed, as it is proper controller on board. However all infos I found is just - it will work with SATA II drive without problem, and putting 7200rpm drive users see better performance. Which actually doesn't answer my question at all..
Reason I'm asking - I have one 7200rpm drive which is SATA 1, used from other laptop, which was speedy that times, now replaces with SSD. If there is no real SATA 2 speed available, I'm not sure it is worth to buy some Scorpio Black drive to this laptop.
Other option could be also SSD (expensive, but can be used later on in some other equipment. However I'm afraid about running Vista on it, especially I prefer to clone current drive rather then install everything from scratch. Already tested with other laptop - it doesn't work perfectly...

Any confirmed SATA II speed on this laptop? Some numbers from benchmarks?
I've tested current drive with CristalHDDMark - it performs really bad - below 30MB/s.

Added:
I read more carefully about HDDs and speeds. Looks like for HDD it is just hdd limitation, below SATA1 limits, so looks like good drive can speed up the laptop. SATA II could be useful in case of SSD. So my question is still valid - any confirmed tests with SATA2 speed for SSD? And maybe some results examples about using fast HDD just to know potential benefits?

 

Haven't verified it, but like you said, the 1525 should support SATA II. Depending on your workload, you may or may not actually notice a difference between SATA I and SATA II with a good SSD. I'd say in this day and age of 6gb/s solid state, there are no "fast HDDs".

 

Reason I'm asking is my other laptop T61p, which has SATA2 capable chipset, however it is limited in BIOS to run with SATA1 only. I put SSD into it and to be honest I felt real improvement with speed immedately (in Crystal benchmark it was jump from 50 to 130MB/s). Then I applied 'corrected' BIOS with SATA2 enabled. Benchmark shows 240, however I don't really see the difference for previous SATA1 option. That's why I'd like to have someone confirming how it works.
In case of 1525 I have really slow original HDD - as I mentioned it is about 27MB/s. I theory good HDD (like scorpio black) should provide visible improvement (2-3x?) Of course it is not comparable with SSD, but it is not the intention. I'd like to have just some visible better performance, still remembering it is old laptop. If not possible, I don't care about small changes in benchmarks and I'll not touch it, until I'll decide to buy SSD. Unfortunately I need to look for at least 240-256GB drive, which will be more expensive than whole 1525 ;-). 128GB is much cheaper, but then I cannot close 160GB HDD into it...

 

The fastest mechanical drives won't even break SATA 1 speeds so what difference does it matter? If you get an SSD, then it will matter if you are capped to SATA 1. And the T61 series had a BIOS limitation capping it to SATA 1, that is completely different than XX laptop model not outright supporting SATA 2, 1525 = 965GM = SATA 2 support.

 

thank, that was exactly reason of my question about I found T61p with BIOS limitation so I started to afraid is it common approach of different vendors.
I'll rethink is it worth to spend any money to HDD or just go to SSD directly.