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[j3SeCh6d]

A top-of-the-line SATA III SSD deserves the best SATA III port in any computer. My 2 Samsung 830 128gb in SATA III raid-0 has been stable for 6 months now. I do backup important files regularly though.

If you don't have SATA III ports, then SATA II in raid-0 or raid-5 is probably a good idea if you buy quality SSD(s).

Another option is using a pci-e x4 sata iii controller, this will bring the speed to 5 Gbps, or SATA 2.5+ speed, or ~330 MB/s.

 

[kleinkinstein]

If I'm out of SATA III ports

Why? How?

 

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[Emulex]

the drives will favor writes to reads and you'll get peak sata-2 on writes but reads will suffer in benchmarks which do not necessarily mirror real life.

very few people can push 32 QD for any period of time.

 

[gpse]

I just purchased a Samsung 840 Pro 128GB for my Mac Pro that uses SATA 2, I've noticed a speed difference from my old 64GB Crucial M4. I say get the 256 PRO because it'll still be an improvement.

 

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[Emulex]

no idea but when i hooked it up to raid, i got less read than write and read was peaked out but write was not.

when i connected to to 6gbps, man that drive flies! the 512gb is super fast, the 128gb sucks ballz. 256gb or 512gb only.

 

[j3SeCh6d]

Because Intel only provides two miserable ports, why do you think?[/QUOTE]

Then transfer/switch the 2 plugged SATA III devices/drives, to the SATA II ports. Then use the 2 available SATA III ports for raid 0.

 

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[j3SeCh6d]

It sounds like you're stucked with SATA II ports. Choosing the fastest random r/w iops SSD would be important in your selection process: Vertex 4 128gb has the best random iops in raid 5 mode.

 

[kleinkinstein]

Because Intel only provides two miserable ports, why do you think?

Okay Napoleon. But you're still not answering the question. Let me try it this way.... What other two native 6 GB/s devices could you possibly have connected that are more important than an 840 Pro?

 

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[j3SeCh6d]

Can't you find room for a ~7gb O/S in your primary drives?

If you have a pci-e x1 slots available, then a sata iii controller will run @ 5 Gbps [max based on pci-e 2.0]. I would not use such a small bandwidth controller for a raid 0 though.

 

[tweakboy]

Enjoy it. All I can say was the only difference I saw going from sata 2 and sata 3 was NOTHING except the fact your at 260mbps doing large transfers when you can be 550mbps , RAID makes it 1k read write.. but all this is good for bulky stuff.. youll be fine on your current sata 2.0 dont buy card they dont work properly and will perform slower.

There is no diff like boot up time or app launch or data read write time,,, between sata 2.0 and 3.0. The big and only diference tho is 2.0 is 150mbps max, 3.0 is 550mbps... you can RAID that to 1K ,, if you do bulky transfers left and right. gl

 

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[j3SeCh6d]

If you run Windows in SATA II, the following will run in SATA II mode such as: Directx 11, GPU drivers, internet/wan/lan drivers, audio/sound drivers, virtual memory, online communication headsets & anything else that windows need to run your games. It feels crippled.

"25% OP" seems too high. Since this will be a SSD raid 0 array, the write amplication is already reduce by 50%, the IRST drivers for ivy-bridge z77 chipset has SSD TRIM support to keep the SSD array in top form.

Since you want top performing games, install a software RAM drive 2-3GB in size to cache all your Windows TEMP/TMP & virtual memory if it's activated. It minimize the use of your SSD array & keep everything in RAM for speed/performance.

 

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[j3SeCh6d]

I did some rough calculation between a sata iii & ii in raid-0:

sata iii raid 0 [2 ssd samsung 840 pro] = ~1000 MB/s

sata ii raid 0 [3 ssd samsung 840 pro] = ~810 MB/s

The difference in total bandwidth is ~20%. Using the fastest random r/w iops SSD(s) in sata ii raid 0 [3 SSDs] will bring it closer to maybe ~10 to ~15%.

Let me know how you finally decide because my motherboard only has 2 sata iii ports, too. At some point, I may need to expand SSD data storage to my 3 available sata ii ports.

 

[Emulex]

trim has nothing to do with consistency. OP is a good thing. Unless you are a casual user. I've got jobs that push to QD64 for over 2 minutes, that is where lack of OP will drop your iops from 100K to 1K (samsung 840 pro). in that 1-2 minute heavy random write ETL run

 

[fuzzymath10]

In practical terms I can't see being stuck with SATA-2 speeds a big problem for an OS drive. Only in specific scenarios can you exceed 300MB/sec, and that will be rare for a system drive. Why not save the hassle and just let it run in SATA-2 mode?

 

[Cerb]

If you run Windows in SATA II, the following will run in SATA II mode such as: Directx 11, GPU drivers, internet/wan/lan drivers, audio/sound drivers, virtual memory, online communication headsets & anything else that windows need to run your games. It feels crippled.

Um, no. Only storage access will be at all slower, and then only if forced to flush before the next read, whilst having a high QD...IoW, something that just doesn't happen on 99.9% of desktops. Get the single drive, and realize that you're obsessing too much about nothing.

Unless you're doing something that actually keeps QD high, it's worrying over nothing, and expecting diagnostic benchmarks to reflect everyday usage.