SSD Question that has probably already been asked at some point....

I have a sata-II laptop (HP Envy 14 1st Gen).

As everyone knows - almost all new drives are Sata-III.

I have been looking at the new Samsung 840 pro (128gb) to replace my 7200rpm HDD.

I obviously will not see all of the performance gain due to my Sata controller, but can someone make a valid point to not get the 840 pro?

Thanks.

 

You wont be using the full speed of a 840 PRO.

Get a bigger M4 or Samsung 830 drive, much cheaper and the speed will be insanely fast as your SATA-II speed will be maximized. No need to buy a insanely quick SATA-III SSD when you cant use it.

- Better off using less money on a bigger drive just as reliable especially since the difference is not visible when using SATA-II.

 

If you plan to hold onto the Envy for a considerable lenght of time Jaug1337 ^ makes a very good point. If you will be upgrading to a new(er) laptop soon I would get the 840 and buy the new laptop with the lowest cost hard drive option.

 

Even if you had a SATAIII connection in your laptop, I still wouldn't recommend the 840 when you have options such as the 830 and M4 for cheaper (or same price, but bigger capacity). This is because you won't notice any differences in read/write speed between the drives, but instead what you will notice is the random access time, which is basically the same across the board. You'll only feel "slowed down" if you find yourself constantly transferring large files here and there.

For example, my SATAII Intel 320 feels just as fast as my SATAIII Intel 330, even though the read/write speeds on the latter is almost twice that of the former.

 

Thanks for the input! It makes my decision somewhat tough. One of the major reasons I am so set on the 840pro is due to the power consumption. Yes, I know the power consumption of a storage device is minimal to the entire system, but the 840 pro seems to be one of the most efficient drives out there, matched with top performance.

To answer the question about going to a sata-III device - I am actually researching if I would be able to swap my 1st gen motherboard (sata-II) out with the second gen motherboard (which is sata-III) for multiple reasons - sandy bridge cpu, usb 3.0, etc.

 

That's a pretty drastic measure for a laptop, and it's probably more cost effective to just buy a Sandy Bridge laptop instead. Not to mention that messing with the motherboard will certainly void any warranty you have on your current laptop.

 

Oh the warranty expired two years ago haha. I have done a lot of work on laptops. The cost to replace motherboard +CPU (i7) will be about 350, which i think is very reasonable compared to buying a new laptop, although many people may disagree. I just really like the Envy with the radiance display, slice battery, mini-display port, etc.

But I feel for the sake of power consumption, and the future possibility of sata-III just push me towards the 840 pro.

 

Power consumption is certainly a good reason to go for one SSD over another. The Envy 14 w/Radiance definitely has a great screen (I almost bought one). $350 is pretty good, so if you want to replace the motherboard then that sounds good