Currently well suited SATA2-SSDs for Laptop usage

I am looking for a solid state drive for my laptop.

My dillemma: I have been waiting for the new Intel SSDs since Q3/2010, as I've heard they should be better and cheaper, due to lower memory manufacturing costs.

Now it looks like the new Intel drives are very fast, but still expensive. I would still buy one of them if I could benefit from the full speed. My hardware only has a SATA-2 port though.

Thus, my question:

Is it worthwhile to buy an SSDs made for SATA-3 if I won't be able to use the full speed?

I don't consider this question subjective, as I am mainly looking for answers concerning the SATA-2/SATA-3 conflict.

Edit: Removed model-related questions

Danilo Bargen

Posted 2011-02-21T19:29:23.473

Reputation: 2 207

1In response to some of what you have, there is no performance penalty for using a SATA3 drive on a SATA2 chipset. As for your last two questions, there are many promising SSDs that are being released every week, and it is your duty to choose which is best for you - not this community's. – Breakthrough – 2011-02-22T21:35:18.560

1I updated my question and removed the model-related parts. – Danilo Bargen – 2011-02-23T09:48:21.773

It's more a shopping type question asking if you think people will benefit still from a purchase – random – 2011-02-24T04:54:00.580

random: No, since the edit, it's not a shopping question anymore. Even though it's asked in a shopping context, it's more of a performance question. I think the way the question looks right now, it belongs to Superuser and should be reopened. The purpose of this shopping rule is to prevent questions that become irrelevant quickly, because new products emerge. This is not the case for the SATA2/SATA3-performance-comparison. – Danilo Bargen – 2011-02-24T10:24:05.673

Answers

In answer to your non-subjective part of the question. SATA rev. 3 drives will work with a SATA rev. 2 controller.

SATA3 drives have newer technologies and tend to have larger caches, so there will probably be a gain over a "SATA2" drive, even at "SATA2" controller speeds.

See here for a bit of info on that.

There will always be something better/promising coming in the next few months. ;)

I'm not going to recommend a drive make/model as shopping recommendations are off-topic for this site.

Hope that helps...

Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007

Posted 2011-02-21T19:29:23.473

Reputation: 103 763

1Thanks for the info. I agree with you on the thing with the better/promising stuff coming up :) – Danilo Bargen – 2011-02-22T17:43:23.197

-2

I like Kingstons SSD product line. By the way, most chipset in Intel's SSD are Kingston anyway. http://www.insight.ca/apps/nbs/index.php?C=112&S=1065&lang=en-ca&M=KT

They are usually cheaper than Intel's too.

Alex

Posted 2011-02-21T19:29:23.473

Reputation: 165

The 'chipset' inside Intel's SSDs are NOT Kingston, they are Intel (maybe a 'little' Micron too). Intel doesn't just make CPUs. ;) – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2011-02-21T23:49:07.570

If you speak of SSD controllers, then you are right Intel makes their own, but the NAND chips are kinsgston. Intel does not produce NAND. Also, the first Intel and Kingston SSD drives where co-branded for that reason. – Alex – 2011-02-22T14:24:59.603

Alex: You're probably right about the Intel-Kingston-thing (I didn't check), but the most important thing in an SSD imo is the controller. So even though they share the same memory, I still prefer Intel over Kingston because they have pretty great controllers. – Danilo Bargen – 2011-02-22T17:38:51.160

@Alex: Not that it's a big deal but I'd like to see a reference about Kingston making Intel's NAND, as Intel has been partnering with Micron for NAND projects since (at least) 2009: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/opinion/1566645/nand-flash-intel-bother - more recent: http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/2010/20100201comp.htm . Kingston's original SSD's were rebranded Intel drives (not the other way around: http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20081223PD215.html).

– Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2011-02-22T18:19:16.353

I actually had that information by opening the enclosure of my Intel SSD drive. I was also curious after participating in a Kingston presentation about SSD where they where bragging about providing NAND chips to Intel. Much to my surprise it was Kingston NAND. – Alex – 2011-02-22T21:02:54.667

@Alex: Which Intel SSD model was it? Here's a YouTube video of an Intel X25-M being taken apart by NCIX in 2009. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsIHsr0bxEg - All the flash memory (NAND) and controller chips are marked "i", the cache memory chip is a Samsung. Kingston buys flash memory (NAND and otherwise) from the likes of Toshiba and Samsung to implement in their 'modules' with their logic. The flash memory producers of the world are Intel, Spansion, Samsung, Qimonda, Toshiba, STMicro, and Hynix. I'll stop hassling you now. :)

– Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2011-02-24T00:48:35.273

I believe it was an X25-V (40GB or so). Probably one of the first version available here since we had purchased it for benchmarking. – Alex – 2011-02-24T17:53:09.577