Msata III v Msata compatability

[elkay62]

Hopefully this will be an easy question for someone.

Will an Msata III drive fit in an original Msata socket?
Specifically I am looking at
http://www.amazon.co.uk/KingFast-1310MCJ09-256-Capacity-Internal-m-SATA/dp/B00MRV7GJ8/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1458899423&sr=1-1&keywords=msata
and want to install it in an old samsung np900x3a

regards
elkay

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey there, elkay62.

The short answer is - yes. mSATA (a.k.a. mini-SATA) is basically a device with the mSATA form factor and the SATA interface. So what I'm saying is that this is showing that the drive is using SATA III interface and not that it's a different connector. The form factor is still the same and you should be able to connect it to each mSATA slot you have. The SATA interface is backwards compatible so even if the slot is using SATA II or I, you should still be able to use the drive without a hitch. However you should be aware that there are different limitations for the SATA interface which might bottleneck your drive's speed. SATA I supports speed of up to 150MB/s, SATA II - up to 300MB/s and SATA III up to 600MB/s.

If you are still worried that this is a compatible drive, perhaps you should contact directly the laptop manufacturer's customer support to make sure that you won't have any issues.

Also, this might be interesting if you want a bit more extensive explanation regarding mSATA: http://superuser.com/questions/427870/what-is-the-difference-between-msata-and-sata-ssds

Hope that helps.
Boogieman_WD

 

[elkay62]

Thanks Boogieman

Well explained.

Elkay

Hey there, elkay62.

The short answer is - yes. mSATA (a.k.a. mini-SATA) is basically a device with the mSATA form factor and the SATA interface. So what I'm saying is that this is showing that the drive is using SATA III interface and not that it's a different connector. The form factor is still the same and you should be able to connect it to each mSATA slot you have. The SATA interface is backwards compatible so even if the slot is using SATA II or I, you should still be able to use the drive without a hitch. However you should be aware that there are different limitations for the SATA interface which might bottleneck your drive's speed. SATA I supports speed of up to 150MB/s, SATA II - up to 300MB/s and SATA III up to 600MB/s.

If you are still worried that this is a compatible drive, perhaps you should contact directly the laptop manufacturer's customer support to make sure that you won't have any issues.

Also, this might be interesting if you want a bit more extensive explanation regarding mSATA: http://superuser.com/questions/427870/what-is-the-difference-between-msata-and-sata-ssds

Hope that helps.
Boogieman_WD