SATA 3 Controller for Samsung SSD 830?

[Ice_Black]

I want to buy Samsung SSD 830 but my motherboard (AMD CPU) support max SATA 2.

So I need a SATA 3 Controller, which one do you recommend? but not too expensive...

[Agent]

You don't *need* a SATA3 controller for the drive to work, it'll just be capped at SATA2 speeds. Remember: IOPS for general desktop speed over read and write speeds.

Given that they are 300MB/s, are you going to be hitting this often enough to warrant a card? It only really comes into play when dealing with large files, and even then (assuming a 256gig 830) going to be capped at the write speed of the SSD if copying the file to itself which barely breaks SATA2 speeds.
If you're copying large files to another, non-SSD based drive, then you're massively limited by the write speed of that drive which again means no advantage to read speed.

If you take a standard desktop setup and look at the files encountered they will be mostly 4K, then a range from 16K to 64K. When you start to work with these 'real world' files, your speeds plummet on any SSD, the 830 included: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4863/t...d-830-review/4
If you check that page, you'll see the drive doesn't even hit 200MB/s on the read, and less than 100MB for the write - which again means no advantage in buying a SATA3 card for you.

Do you work with large files that need reading sequentially often?

Ask yourself this really: When is the exact time you'd need SATA3 over SATA2. If you can't answer without hesitation, it's very unlikely you'll need to upgrade to a SATA3 card
For desktop use (forget benchmarking - they are vajazzle for geeks), then SATA3 really offers little to no improvement.

[Ice_Black]

I have a M3A78-T motherboard http://uk.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_AM2Plus/M3A78T/

So basically Samsung SSD 830 should work fine on SATA2 motherboard?

Thanks

You don't *need* a SATA3 controller for the drive to work, it'll just be capped at SATA2 speeds. Remember: IOPS for general desktop speed over read and write speeds.

Given that they are 300MB/s, are you going to be hitting this often enough to warrant a card? It only really comes into play when dealing with large files, and even then (assuming a 256gig 830) going to be capped at the write speed of the SSD if copying the file to itself which barely breaks SATA2 speeds.
If you're copying large files to another, non-SSD based drive, then you're massively limited by the write speed of that drive which again means no advantage to read speed.

If you take a standard desktop setup and look at the files encountered they will be mostly 4K, then a range from 16K to 64K. When you start to work with these 'real world' files, your speeds plummet on any SSD, the 830 included: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4863/t...d-830-review/4
If you check that page, you'll see the drive doesn't even hit 200MB/s on the read, and less than 100MB for the write - which again means no advantage in buying a SATA3 card for you.

Do you work with large files that need reading sequentially often?

Ask yourself this really: When is the exact time you'd need SATA3 over SATA2. If you can't answer without hesitation, it's very unlikely you'll need to upgrade to a SATA3 card
For desktop use (forget benchmarking - they are vajazzle for geeks), then SATA3 really offers little to no improvement.

[andrewmchugh]

I have a M3A78-T motherboard http://uk.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_AM2Plus/M3A78T/

So basically Samsung SSD 830 should work fine on SATA2 motherboard?

Thanks

Yes that will be fine, In the real world you wont notice the limitation that the sata2 is imposing on you.

[GoNz0]

a sata3 add on card wont be much faster so stay as you are.

[HalloweenJack]

AND


99% of SATA 3 addon cards use the aweful Marvell 9128 sata 3 chip - which is internally limited to pcie 1x... which means it maxes out at around 380 mb/s anyway , not alot over the sata 2 speed

[pctech2012]

Answered a question I was asking myself too as was thinking about getting an SSD.

[Ice_Black]

I've bought Samsung SSD yesterday and reinstalled Windows, is this how it should be? see blow.

Connected to SATA2 (Asus motherboard - AMD CPU)

[Sputnik]

I've bought Samsung SSD yesterday and reinstalled Windows, is this how it should be? see blow.

Connected to SATA2 (Asus motherboard - AMD CPU)

It looks about right, It is better to use AS-SSD with SSD's as it is more specific to them. It will also tell you if your alignment is correct.

You can also check alignment by typing msinfo32 in the search box and following components>Storage>disks and dividing the Partition starting offset by 4096 if the alignment is correct it will be a full number.

[Ice_Black]

It looks about right, It is better to use AS-SSD with SSD's as it is more specific to them. It will also tell you if your alignment is correct.

You can also check alignment by typing msinfo32 in the search box and following components>Storage>disks and dividing the Partition starting offset by 4096 if the alignment is correct it will be a full number.

How does that look:

[Sputnik]

How does that look:

That looks ok to me. Alignment is correct.

[Ice_Black]

That looks ok to me. Alignment is correct.

When it coping large files - it is very fast.

When there are a lot of small files in the dir - I feel the copy transfer is very slow.

[MadduckUK]

My 240GB Sandisk Extreme, using an SATA2 AMD 790FX motherboard.

[Apex]

Dell D620 Laptop - i am happy even if to you this seems slow to me it isn't - well worth the 50 quid.

[Sputnik]

Dell D620 Laptop - i am happy even if to you this seems slow to me it isn't - well worth the 50 quid.

I notice your using IDE does the laptop not support ahci ?

[Apex]

Dell D620 = no option for it in the bios even if the chipset supports it which is why i went for this SSD; the garbage collection works on it's own etc