What is the fastest and most reliable SATA II SSD?

[NathanEDavid]

I am trying to get the most out of my PC without replacing the MOBO, as I have two of these MOBO's at my disposal and I've already flashed one of them with the latest BIOS revision for this minor upgrade. My Windows Experience rating is 5.9 with my current hard drive, so I am wondering if the difference in moving up to a SATA II SSD would be worth it in terms of possibly lost reliability per marginal gain in performance. I have read that the controller in Corsair's Force SSD's makes their ratings a bit deceiving, but by the same token, reviews for the Vertex 2 seem to indicate that they are faulty and die either ASAP or within months of their purchase/installation. Can someone please recommend the best SSD for me to consider that will reduce load times and be yet-reliable, with as much bang for the buck as possible? I am not looking for a huge drive, just something for my primary boot drive, some video editing software and maybe a game or two for my boy. I'll still have the 500G Barracuda for additional apps and pics, etc.

MOBO = Asus M2A-VM
CPU = Phen II 945 95W C3 (on order) / currently Phen I 9750 95W (WEI=7.0)
RAM = 8GB PC2-6400 (WEI=7.2)
GPU = XFX Radeon 6790 1GB DDR5 (WEI=7.5/7.5)
HD = Seagate Barracuda ST3500418AS 7200 500G w/ 16MB cache (WEI=5.9)

ALSO, does anyone know if the Phenom II's still will only recognize two banks of PC2-8500?

Thanks.

 

[rolli59]

For the price just get a SATA III SSD! One of these days you will have a new motherboard that supports SATA 6GB and you can move the drive over. Crucial M4 and Samsung 830 are about the most recommended drives.

 

[NathanEDavid]

I have considered that, but where do I get reviews on how well they perform when restricted to SATA II? It may be awhile before I upgrade to a different MOBO. If AMD has or ever does overcome the two module limit on the PC2-8500 RAM, then with the CPU I have on order I think I'll have about all the PC I'll need for some time to come. If you've seen the previews of Windows 8, believe it or not it actually uses less resources than Windows 7 does. It also is more backward compatible - all the way back to DirectX 9.0. It seems that people are realizing that enough is enough. From what I gather, Windows is mostly trying to soften up the environment and make it more bells and whistles, to be more competitive with Apple (just my opinion). I, for one, am not all that hype on the 3D industry, because it really isn't great for your eyes. Anyway, do you know of any performance listings for what the SATA III's do when restricted to SATA II? Thanks!

 

[rolli59]

Well a SATA III drive can max out your SATA II controller which the SATA II drive cant. Here are some good links http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/270102-32-useful-articles-part

 

[NathanEDavid]

Well a SATA III drive can max out your SATA II controller which the SATA II drive cant. Here are some good links http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/270102-32-useful-articles-part

Whoa man, you're right! I found a review of the Samsung 830 running as a SATA 3.0G, and it performs like the SATA II's claim they can do, but in real to life benchmarks. They also said it ranked 7.7 in WEI, so it would likely be better performing than anything else in my system. Prolly help my CPU along too, with better cache to work with. Right now I run from a 8GB HP USB flash stick for added cache, but it is not a high performance stick. I won't even have to bother getting a high performance stick with that drive. It will be the next toy on my list. Thanks a bunch!

http://usingwindowshomeserver.com/2011/10/02/review-of-the-samsung-series-830-ssd/

 

[NathanEDavid]

Best answer selected by NathanEDavid.