P150EM: SSD or SSD + mSATA

Hi,

I am wondering if the cost of a mSATA worth it: +$200.
Since I plan to get a 256Go SSD as my primary drive, is a mSATA drive really usefull ?

What's the difference having the OS on the SSD with all my other apps
and having the OS alone on mSATA ?

 

The maximum speed of the primary drive bay will be faster as it is SATA III and the mSATA slot is SATA II.

Xotic did do a video review on the 170em in which they used a small mSATA drive as a cache drive for a primary SSD drive. They did notice a pretty decent boost in performance but your mileage will vary a lot with cache drives. mSATA drives are still pretty expensive compared to a regular SSD, so unless you have a ton of money to spend, get the SSD over the mSATA SSD if you have to chose one.

IMO you will get plenty of performance out of the SSD in the primary bay. If you need more space, swap out the optical bay for a 500 or 750GB HDD. A 128 or 256GB SSD paired with a 500/750GB HDD is probably the most efficient option as far as price, speed, and storage go. It's probably the most recommended as well. In the future you can always toss in the mSATA drive and the prices will come down eventually.

Generally people put the OS alone on the mSATA drives because those drives are a lot smaller and don't have much more space to hold other programs. The larger mSATA drives are very expensive so people who do buy one usually get a small one that can virtually only be used as a boot drive or cache drive. If you're planning on getting a 256GB SSD you will be much better off because you can throw several other programs on there besides just the OS.

 

Since you are getting the SSD, keep your OS and your programs on it and if you are putting in a HDD into the Optical Bay, keep your data on that. Personally, I don't feel that mSATA is of much use unless you use it as a cache drive, which isn't of much use cause you already have a SSD. They are costlier than SSDs and have slower reading/writing speeds.

 

Thank you both for quick and clear answers!

 

Hi Guys, Forgive my English
Here data Eurocom EUROCOM Newsroom - Benchmark
they argue that msata has possibility to work SATAIII.
however Datasheet SN75LVCP412 (chip redriver for msata) only Data Rates up to 3.0 Gbps

 

The mSATA in the P150EM and P170EM only has a SATA-II connection, you WONT be able to get SATA-III no matter what.

 

Alright, the typical response on this site is people always saying no to the mSATA drive. I, however, have the exact opposite opinion. It IS true that the maximum throughput of the SATA-III drives is higher, however, if you look at the specs, you'll find the mSATA drives often have higher (or at least comparable) IOPS than their larger counterparts. I cannot stress enough that IOPS are MORE IMPORTANT than maximum throughput for your OS. By keeping your OS on a seperate drive, it's easier to keep clean and organized. I know that my mSATA drive has significantly higher write IOPS than my SATA-III SSD, and just a tiny bit lower read IOPS.

Also, whatever decision you decide to go with, look into FancyCache as a caching solution for your drives, especially if you buy 12 or more GB or RAM.

 

I run an msata drive as my main os/game drive. This lets me have my 750gb as a storage drive, and keep my optical drive.

 

I have a 256gb mSATA drive in my p150em and it's REALLY fast.
MyDigitalSSD 256GB SandForce SATA III Smart Series mSATA SSD | My Digital Discount

I didn't think it was toooooo expensive (especially for 256gb)

 

I'm also going with a 256gb crucial mSata when my p150em arrives.
I can get here in Belgium for 250USD wich is a very good price I think.

I really need my dvd-drive, so having an optibay isn't an option for me.
Even if the speeds aren't satisfying, I can play a little with FancyCache.

 

mSATA + HDD or SSD + HDD (opticaly bay) is the way to go. Sager actually wont even allow a build if you do a SSD + mSATA as you wont see any speed increases.

 

I was actually thinking on having a 64 gb mSATA + 128 or 256 gb SSD + 500 gb HDD. The msata would be solely for the OS, the SSD for my important applications, and the HDD for the data storage. 32 or 64 gb msatas aren't expensive, and I don't particularly care about whether the ODD is internal or external.

 

Go for 256gb SSD instead if 64gb msata+128gb SSD. Probably will be cheaper and youre powering less components.

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

 

Go for SSD + 500GB HDD instead, cheaper per gigabyte and fully functional at SATA III speed. mSata in the P150EM is only SATA II.

 

Oh my goodness... why does everyone keep ignoring this important point? The maximum throughput is a THEORETICAL number that NEVER gets touched by the OS. The IOPS are more important, and the IOPS are not limited by SATA-II (not realistically anyway, the limitation is far and away above what any current drives can do, though enterprise server arrays may have to consider it). I'll admit that using the mSATA drive as a cache for a SATA drive is silly, though Sager is wrong to say that it can't improve performance at all. Just like striping two SSD's, it will give you small gains. Sorry, Hutsady, but you are definitely echoing false information on that one. Don't believe me? Try it for yourself. No really, please try it before saying it again... as a reseller, your voice holds more weight, but I've seen you give this advice multiple times and it just isn't true. If you do, post pics of benchmarks, please.

Note: It won't necessarily improve large file transfer speeds, it will improve access speeds, random 4k's (the most important stat for OS's) and the like. That being said, it's better to use as an OS drive than as a cache drive. If you want to cache an SSD drive, FancyCache is the way to go.

All of my research (very, very thorough research) put together has made it quite clear that there is little to no advantage to having the OS on a SATA-III drive over a SATA-II drive. If the price is an issue, then there's no argument, but if you can afford it, and want the convenience of a truly separate drive for your OS, there's no real downside to putting it on an mSATA in a P150em.

 

If IOPS is what you are looking for, MyDigitalSSD mSATA only has 35000 IOPS on read, Intel's 520 has 50000 IOPS on read and Samsung's 830 has 80000 IOPS on read. Even the Crucial M4 has 45000 IOPS on read.

 

I would go with an Msata driver for OS/favorite games and a 750 Seagate Hybrid Drive. To be honest with you, I dont see any difference from my desktop boot up process running at Sata 3 nor my 9150 which is running at Sata 2.

 

oops double post? my bad

 

Yes, which for games and the like which mostly READ from the disk, that's good for them. When it comes to the OS, which does the majority of writing, including temp files, cached web sites, saved games, and all those other little garbage files that OS's are constantly writing, then it becomes an advantage that the MyDigitalSSD mSATA drive has 86,000 write IOPS. It's all about what is most important for it's chosen function, and as an OS drive, my mSATA is better than my SATA-III SSD.

 

How can you use msata as your main game drive if it is invisible and can not be accessed or have you changed it from a "Cache" to normal SSD?
Normal SSDs are said to improve environment mapping/texture loading during game play in games like Skyrim. Does Msata do the same too?

 

How do you put games on an Msata driver if it is not visible or have you changed it from "Caching SSD" to "Normal SSD" by Bios access?

 

There is no switch to turn an mSATA into a caching drive, it must be setup with raid, as soon as you break up the "array" it would be released like any other drive.

Only drives up to 64GB can be used to cache anyway.