I have a Sata II laptop- Why not get an M4?

Hello,

I'm pretty new to SSD's but the speed I've seen is irresistible. I'm looking to buy one for my Acer TimelineX 4820tg-7805 to make it scream, but I cannot decide which to buy.

I know that my machine is only SATA II, but I am not sure what other factors would come into play when installing a SSD.

My real question is why should I NOT buy an M4? Or any other SATA III drive for that matter? I keep reading "don't bother getting a SATA III because you won't be able to use it to it's full potential", but if the drive can be used just as well as a SATA II and I can get it for a better price, why not? Will it actually perform worse than the SATA II drive?

I also am taking into consideration future use on say my next laptop, since the price of an SSD is nothing to scoff at.

So, at the moment, I'm considering the Intel 320 160 or 300GB drive, or the Crucial M4 256GB. What should I choose, and what should I know before choosing? Are there other drives I should consider over these?

Thanks so much for any help!

 

Both drives you list are good drives and both will work fine. The M4 will perform quite better than the 320 even on SATA 2 as it's random performance vastly exceeds the 320's. No, you won't get the full sequential performance on SATA 2, but it will run fine and the random performance, which is what really matters in an SSD anyway, will DESTROY the 320.

I have a 120GB 320 at work and the 256 M4 in my laptop. I can definitely tell the difference, and there is way more crap on my laptop. The laptop still is better. Of course the 120GB isn't the fastest 320 whereas the 256 is the fastest M4, but still.

Either will be a nice upgrade, but I would go with the M4. Then if in the future you get a SATA 3 system, you can move it over and use it to the max.

Intel, Crucial, and Samsung are the best reliable brands to choose from. The M4 will be the fastest of those. Also near the low end of the price spectrum.

 

Thanks a bunch for your response! Yeah, that makes sense to me. I couldn't understand why people were saying not to bother getting a SATA 3 drive because of my system SATA 2 limitations.

I think I may indeed close on the M4, unless anyone else has any more input?

 

I also bought an M4 128GB for my sata II laptop, and it works great... exactly for the same reasons as yourself.

 

i think as mSATA gets into more laptops traditional SSD's will become niche products. because with an mSATA SSD you can essentially have a dual drive setup on your notebook

 

With mSATA, notebooks can become more like their desktop counterparts, with 2, 3, 4 or more (17" and larger systems) drive 'bays'.

I can't wait! Especially when they can get mSATA up to TB levels too.

 

That will be awesome. How long off is it before it's a common component?

 

I'm probably jumping the gun here, but with Haswell around the corner, I'm guessing sometime in 2012.

 

the reason i posted about mSATA was because you mentioned you wanted to keep the ssd for your next laptop purchase as well. maybe not a good idea with mSATA starting to appear

 

Ah I see your point. So, an msata to sata adapter wouldn't work for a newer machine? I'm assuming most of the adapters go the other way.

So you're thinking it's best to hold off if I'm planning on getting a new computer in the next year or two?

 

I have SATA II on Sony Vaio F11. I have M4 256GB and it works great! I think my disk is limited by sequential speeds which are not important.

SATA III and SATA II are fully compatible. Limited sequential speeds arent important. Sequential speeds are just marketing trick.

Here are my speeds from CrystalDiskMark and my actual CrystalDiskInfo:

 

No, sequential speeds are not a marketing trick...

Could you maybe run this benchmark:

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...h-storage/599219-anvil-storage-utilities.html


It will allow us to see much further into the details of your SSD's performance than CDM allows.

Thanks in advance.

 

Sequential speeds ARE marketing trick:
The SSD Manufacturers Bluff - The SSD Review

What you need mainly is fast random write speeds!

 

Thanks for the attached ASU benchmark.

I didn't mean that sequential speeds are the only important aspect of a storage device's performance - I mean that it is equally as important.

Perfect example:

When I tested my systems with an Intel X25-M - the performance was miserable compared to my HDD's directly because the sequential speeds were lower than my partitioned high performance HDD's.

After 1-2 yrs? I tested the Intel 320 Series 160GB SSD's in the same platforms and was finally impressed enough with an SSD to actually spend the money on it gladly.

Because of sequential speeds (along with the rest of the SSD's benefits).

Keep in mind that the workload from almost two years ago is much less than what I push my systems with now and also keep in mind that the X25-M is still superior in R R/W speeds to the Intel 320 Series SSD's. However, that R R/W speed superiority does not come through in a real world work scenario. At least, not mine.

What matters is balance and from what I see of your benchmark you provided, your drive does seem fine - running theoretical fully compressible data.

You may want to re-run that with the Compression settings set to either 46% or 67% (if you have data on your drive) for a more real world look at your drives actual performance.

 

Here it is, 46% and 67%

 

As expected, the writes are slightly down - but overall, still looking good!