Does my PC support sata3?

Horlock

Possibly a silly question as the answer is bound to depend on what PC i have.

But I wondered whether sata3 is just a standard that works or a new standard that requires a new motherboard - or equally whether anyone can buy a pci card etc.

Basically I'm running a dell studio xps 8000. It has an early i7 processor. Now want to buy an ssd - and wondered whether sata3 is the way to go - obviously I want the sata3 to be the OS disk - so no use if it I need software to recognise the hardware!

Any pointers greatfully received.

gonzo127

having read this http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/reviews/desktop-pc/3205937/dell-studio-xps-8000-review/ i doubt it would be a worth while upgrade, mainly due to the case design - something it specifically mentions is the virtical hard drive mountings making hard drive upgrades hard to impossible.

fwor

No, you would need a SATA3 controller to get the extra throughput, and your PC's mobo only has a SATA2 controller. A SATA3 drive would still work but at the slower 3Gb/s.

You can get SATA3 PCIe cards such as this one:

http://www.ebuyer.com/248986-xenta-2-port-sata-3-pci-express-controller-card-6gbps-cs0033

However, note the comments in the reviews about getting it to work with an i7 CPU! I've no doubt there are others around with better 64bit driver support though...

[Edit: while I can understand gonzo's point, if it were me I'd go for a 2.5" SSD which shouldn't be too hard to find space for.]

gonzo127

fwor wrote: »

No, you would need a SATA3 controller to get the extra throughput, and your PC's mobo only has a SATA2 controller. A SATA3 drive would still work but at the slower 3Gb/s.

You can get SATA3 PCIe cards such as this one:

http://www.ebuyer.com/248986-xenta-2-port-sata-3-pci-express-controller-card-6gbps-cs0033

However, note the comments in the reviews about getting it to work with an i7 CPU! I've no doubt there are others around with better 64bit driver support though...

[Edit: while I can understand gonzo's point, if it were me I'd go for a 2.5" SSD which shouldn't be too hard to find space for.]

can totally see where you are coming from, however you will also need to find even more room the the pci sata3 card as well - not saying it cant be done but i would be very careful and open up the system to see the reality of the situation before the OP goes spending any money

Horlock

fwor wrote: »

No, you would need a SATA3 controller to get the extra throughput, and your PC's mobo only has a SATA2 controller. A SATA3 drive would still work but at the slower 3Gb/s.

You can get SATA3 PCIe cards such as this one:

http://www.ebuyer.com/248986-xenta-2-port-sata-3-pci-express-controller-card-6gbps-cs0033

However, note the comments in the reviews about getting it to work with an i7 CPU! I've no doubt there are others around with better 64bit driver support though...

[Edit: while I can understand gonzo's point, if it were me I'd go for a 2.5" SSD which shouldn't be too hard to find space for.]

Thanks very much for the feedback. I'm still a little confused though. Please correct me if I'm wrong in my interpretation. I believe you are saying:

1. I can buy a sata3 drive which will work out of the box (but will be automatically downgraded to sata2 - which is slow).
2. I can buy a sata3 drive with a pcie card which will work at full speed (but may have problems with windows 7 ultimate 64bit - the OS I'm using)

Assuming that that is correct can you explain exactly what 3Gbs means. I'm looking at a drive which advertises Read 525MB/s, Write 475MB/s, 80K IOPS to me this sounds a lot slower than the 3Gbs which it sounds as if I can get without the extra card.

Finally, can I confirm that if I use the PCIe card, then it still works as the boot drive. May sound silly, but I'm totally confused by how someone else can have difficulty installing drivers - which to my mind comes after installing an OS not before.

Apples2

I had loads of problems getting any PCIe - SATA card to work with a bootable OS.

I simply wouldn't even try it again, okay for messing but even when it works, tends to be a bit flakey.

That said, I run a SSD plugged into SATA3 on an i5.

I simply can't believe you will not be impressed with it even if it is only in a SATA2 (loads of the reviews for the drive I have had them in SATA2 and nobody gave it less than full marks).

Being only 2.5" they are easier to squash into a case with limited options.

Toxteth_OGrady

Horlock wrote: »

Assuming that that is correct can you explain exactly what 3Gbs means. I'm looking at a drive which advertises Read 525MB/s, Write 475MB/s, 80K IOPS to me this sounds a lot slower than the 3Gbs which it sounds as if I can get without the extra card.

SATA III = 6 Gigabits per sec = 750 Megabytes per sec maximum bus speed.

525 Megabytes per sec read = 4.2 Gigabits per sec which exceeds the SATA II maximum bus speed of 3Gbps.

fwor

Horlock wrote: »

1. I can buy a sata3 drive which will work out of the box (but will be automatically downgraded to sata2 - which is slow).

Yes, although 3Gb/s is not exactly slow.

Horlock wrote: »

2. I can buy a sata3 drive with a pcie card which will work at full speed (but may have problems with windows 7 ultimate 64bit - the OS I'm using)

It might work at full speed, or there might be a bottleneck somewhere in the motherboard's chipset that will limit the bitrate.

Horlock wrote: »

Assuming that that is correct can you explain exactly what 3Gbs means. I'm looking at a drive which advertises Read 525MB/s, Write 475MB/s, 80K IOPS to me this sounds a lot slower than the 3Gbs which it sounds as if I can get without the extra card.

If you account for the difference between the B and b in those specs, the drive's Read speed corresponds to over 4Gb/s, so in theory it might be limited by SATA2. In practice it probably won't because real-world disk read and write is seldom continuous.

Horlock wrote: »

Finally, can I confirm that if I use the PCIe card, then it still works as the boot drive. May sound silly, but I'm totally confused by how someone else can have difficulty installing drivers - which to my mind comes after installing an OS not before.

That's the bit that Apples2 (and others) found difficult to get working. When SATA first came out you had much the same difficulty getting the drivers loaded prior to starting to boot the OS.

I agree with what Apples2 says - even at SATA2 data rates, you'll probably be very impressed with the bootup times and general performance that you get from an SSD - I certainly was.

Horlock

Just a big thank you to everyone who contributed. Really appreciate it. I will take the step but possibly not just yet as completely broke at present but definately keen to get this road on the show.

I wont thank people again like this as I don't want to needlessly bump the thread. I view the thread as fully answered and appreciate the feedback.

Thanks again.