SSD's: SATA II VS SATA III - any practical difference?

[Matan Eldan]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking to buy an SSD drive for my system (somewhere between 40 to 90 gigs - it's enough for the OS? [7-64BIT])
The future SSD is designated to my OS only, not for gaming.

There are practical benefits of SATA 3 vs SATA2 in the SSD interface

For example:
If I'll take two identical SSD drives (the same brand and capacity), but different interface (SATA II VS SATA III) will I notice any difference between them?

I don't care of benchmarks, only performance in real life usage.
Please let me know what you think, so I'll buy one a.s.a.p.

BTW, I can only choose one of these drives: (I'll also write down the prices [converted to $])

‎Patriot Wildfire 2.5'' 120GB SSD SATA III Retail‎ - 292$
‎Intel 80GB SSD 320 Series Sata II 2.5'' SSDSA2CW080G3K5 (Retail)‎ - 207$
‎Intel 120GB SSD 320 Series Sata II 2.5'' SSDSA2CW120G3K5 (Retail)‎ - 260$

If non of the drives above are good/recommended - please let me know.

Thanks!

 

[UnleRico]

You can check this article that Tom Shardware just did about this issue: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sata-6gbps-performance-sata-3gbps,3110.html

Basically it says that, IF you can swing it you should get a SATA III SSD. It depends on which SSD you get but, chances are a SATA III SSD will be able to saturate the SATA II connection better than a SATA II SSD will.

Also, in most of the tests the samsung 830 series SSD's do the best, followed by the Crucial m4.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

The answer to your question is a typical user probably will not notice any difference in real world performance.

Tom's Hardware recently published an article about that. Here is the link:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sata-6gbps-performance-sata-3gbps,3110.html


Here is my standard recommendation:

If reliability and stability is a major concern, then I recommend Samsung. Samsung was awarded contracts to supply Dell, Sony, Lenovo, Apple and other off the shelf brands with OEM versions of their 470 Series SATA 2 3Gb/s ssd's. Eventually the 470's were released for retail sale to consumers. There have been no major issues reported. The 470 has an absolutely stellar record.

Then Samsung released their 830 Series SATA 3 6Gb/s ssd's as successors to the 470. The first ones were OEM versions for Dell and the other off the shelf brands followed by release of retail versions for consumers. The ssd's are Samsung's own design with their own components and firmware. It looks like Samsung got it right again.

Here is a link the to ssd database:

http://www.johnnylucky.org/data-storage/ssd-database.html

Scroll down to the brands and models you are interested in and then click on the links to the technical reviews.

 

[Matan Eldan]

Thanks guys for your informative answers.

Well, as a matter of fact - I forgot to add the Crucial M4 [Crucial Solid Series 128GB CT128M4SSD2 SATA III] to the availability list.
The price of the M4 is pretty low compare to the others (234$)

Unfortunately, I can't get the Samsung since we don't have Samsung SSD's in my country (for some odd reason...)

It seems that the best option is to go with the M4.

I appreciate your help

 

[Matan Eldan]

Best answer selected by Matan Eldan.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey