mSATA or SATA III

Hi everyone

I would like to know which I should go for an mSATA SSD or a SATA III SSD. My intention is to use the SSD drive as a boot and software drive.

The SATA III SSD I'm considering is the Samsung 830 128GB.
The mSATA SSD I'm is the Crucial M4 Slim 128GB

I am wondering whether it would be better to save my SATA III bay for a data drive in case I need it and utilise the mSATA slot as the boot drive instead.

In terms of price they are almost the same and in terms of performance they are almost identical.

What would people advise

 

What laptop do you have? Some mSATA slots support SATA/600. I would still pick the mSATA and go for a large HDD for the main 2.5" SATA bay. You can also get a caddy and replace your ODD (assuming you don't use it) with a 2nd 2.5" SATA drive. For HDDs, it doesn't matter what speed the interface is. For SSDs, it might make a little difference, but IMO it's not significant because the most important factors, access time and random speeds, are pretty much unaffected by the interface (SATA/150, 300, 600).

 

While the Samsung 830 is a great performer - it also has high power requirements. I would recommend the M4 if you want the longest battery life.

Between mSATA and SATA - I too would pick the mSATA option even if it is only a SATA2 connection. The extra drive bay could be used for a second SSD/HDD now or in the future - if left empty for now, you'll save a few grams of weight (the mSATA is ridiculously tiny...).

As for the capacity you're considering... I would be looking at a 256GB model instead (no matter if you decide mSATA or SATA...) - much higher performance (initially) and more importantly much higher sustained performance (over the lifetime of your system).

I know - the $$$ increases exponentially by going to a higher capacity model - but if things are worth doing, they are worth doing right.

Good luck.

 

According to Storage Review, it seems that the mSATA SSDs consume more power than their 2.5" counterparts, which seems odd as they should have the exact same components. I wish someone would compare power consumption between the different capacities and between different electrical formats (ie. Crucial M4: 64GB mSATA vs. 64GB 2.5" vs. 128GB mSATA vs. 128GB 2.5", etc.).

 

That's interesting... would you have a link to that Storage Review article about mSATA vs. SATA power consumption?

 

Albeit they're different capacities but the mSATA 128GB consumes more than the 2.5" 256GB.

Micron RealSSD C400 mSATA SSD Review | StorageReview.com - Storage Reviews

"In our lab we measured an average idle usage of 1.43 watts, with write activity using 4.41 watts, sequential read using 3.43 watts, random read needing 1.74 watts, and startup consuming 2.26 watts."

and

Crucial m4 SSD Review (256GB) | StorageReview.com - Storage Reviews

"We found the m4 to lower its power consumption in every category except sequential read, which was only a hair above the C300. We measured 2.93 watts write, 1.55 watts read, 0.84 watts during random 4k read, and 0.60 watts at idle."

 

Thanks for the links - but I don't see how these are even remotely comparable with any hope of interpolating power usage vs. actual work done by the SSD's?

Also; that C400 review's graphs hurt the eyes. Ewww!!!