Will this SSD work with my Mobo?

By Steven P.
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Grand Master

Steven P. Administrators

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http://www.bol.com/nl/p/120gb-crucial-m500-sata-6gbps-2-5i-7mm-ssd/9200000011499960/

 

I see it comes with an adapter, and I have ?7.50 discount (until Dec 2) which makes it a good time to switch.

 

I have a ASUS PK5-E Wi-Fi motherboard (I know it's old) but no need to upgrade yet as I don't use it for gaming.

 

I basically want it just to use for the OS. What else would I need, does it come with a cable etc?

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MindTrickz

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http://www.bol.com/nl/p/120gb-crucial-m500-sata-6gbps-2-5i-7mm-ssd/9200000011499960/

 

I see it comes with an adapter, and I have ?7.50 discount (until Dec 2) which makes it a good time to switch.

 

I have a ASUS PK5-E Wi-Fi motherboard (I know it's old) but no need to upgrade yet as I don't use it for gaming.

 

I basically want it just to use for the OS. What else would I need, does it come with a cable etc?

 

 

You're looking at a SATA 6 SDD (the 6 stands for the maximum transfer speed of the device. 6 Gbit/s - 600 MB/s), and your motherboard only supports SATA 3 (3 Gbit/s - 300 MB/s). SATA 6 is backwards compatiable, so you should be able to use that SDD on your motherboard, but it will bottleneck the performance and speed of the SDD.

 

Here is a benchmark of the SSD you're looking at. As you can see, it has a avarage write speed of 452 MB/s, and you motherboad has a SATA board only supporting up to 300 MB/s.

 

5593_53_crucial_m500_120gb_ssd_review.pn

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Grand Master

Steven P. Administrators

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Yeah I'm not bothered with that.. I'll still be able to use it when I eventually upgrade the PC :) I''m just wondering if when I get it I can install it as is, or if I need to buy a cable or something :P The adapter allows it to be installed in a bay I presume?

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He's Dead Jim

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Yeah I'm not bothered with that.. I'll still be able to use it when I eventually upgrade the PC :) I''m just wondering if when I get it I can install it as is, or if I need to buy a cable or something :p The adapter allows it to be installed in a bay I presume?

Hard to tell from the web page above, but the amazon listed version shows this;

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucial-CT120M500SSD1-2-5-inch-120GB-Internal/dp/B00BQ4F9ZA#productDetails

Box Contains

2.5-inch (7mm) SSD

9.5mm adapter

 

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articuno1au

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It'll work just like any other SATA harddrive.

 

Just plug it in. I doubt it will come with a cable, but you should have one from your existing harddrive, and if not, I'm sure someone nearby will have (a hundred) spare.

 

You need Windows 7 as a minimum and 8 is preferred.

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HawkMan

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You're looking at a SATA 6 SDD (the 6 stands for the maximum transfer speed of the device. 6 Gbit/s - 600 MB/s), and your motherboard only supports SATA 3 (3 Gbit/s - 300 MB/s). SATA 6 is backwards compatiable, so you should be able to use that SDD on your motherboard, but it will bottleneck the performance and speed of the SDD.

 

Here is a benchmark of the SSD you're looking at. As you can see, it has a avarage write speed of 452 MB/s, and you motherboad has a SATA board only supporting up to 300 MB/s.

 

5593_53_crucial_m500_120gb_ssd_review.pn

 

Just because the SDD supports the Sata 6 standard, doesn't mean it's actually capable of that performance.  as you say it supports "up to" 452MBps (3000/8=375, so if the SATA 3 is 3GB then it's 375MB)so while he loses a theoretic 80MB of performance, it's still far faster than a mechanical disk, most of the perofrmance benefit has nothign to do with that speed, but rather the seek time anyway.

 

so yes it will benefit a lot. 

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MindTrickz

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Yeah I'm not bothered with that.. I'll still be able to use it when I eventually upgrade the PC :) I''m just wondering if when I get it I can install it as is, or if I need to buy a cable or something :p The adapter allows it to be installed in a bay I presume?

 

No, you should be able to use your regular SATA cables on the SDD. This homepage tested the cables and concluded:

 

 

"In conclusion, our testing has agreed 100% with SATA-IO's statement that SATA 3Gb/s cables will work perfectly fine with SATA 6Gb/s drives.  This wasn't much of a surprise to us, but it is always nice to have hard data backing up a claim."

 

Regarding the install bay. If your case does not have SDD mounts, you might have to buy a SSD bay.

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primexx

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Just because the SDD supports the Sata 6 standard, doesn't mean it's actually capable of that performance.  as you say it supports "up to" 452MBps (3000/8=375, so if the SATA 3 is 3GB then it's 375MB)so while he loses a theoretic 80MB of performance, it's still far faster than a mechanical disk, most of the perofrmance benefit has nothign to do with that speed, but rather the seek time anyway.

 

so yes it will benefit a lot. 

 

and a lot of SATA6 controllers on early mobos are pretty ###### anyway. I still run my SSDs on SATA3 because my SATA6 ports aren't very good.

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MindTrickz

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Just because the SDD supports the Sata 6 standard, doesn't mean it's actually capable of that performance.  as you say it supports "up to" 452MBps (3000/8=375, so if the SATA 3 is 3GB then it's 375MB)so while he loses a theoretic 80MB of performance, it's still far faster than a mechanical disk, most of the perofrmance benefit has nothign to do with that speed, but rather the seek time anyway.

 

so yes it will benefit a lot. 

 

I don't think that is correct. SATA 3 has a maximum uncoded transfer rate is 2.4 Gbit/s (300 MB/s). That is the maximum. So he would losing 152 MB/s in write speed.

 

SATA 3 (6Gb/s) speeds are from 301MB/s to 600MB/s.

SATA 2 (3Gb/s) speeds are from 151MB/s to 300MB/s.

SATA 1 (1.5Gb/s) speeds are from 1MB/s to 150MB/s.

 

And you are correct in that it will be faster than the mechanical HDD. I was only laying out all the details for him before he made the purchase. But as he said, he will buy the SSD now and use it until he upgrades his PC.

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Steven P. Administrators

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Cheers, it answered my question, I found it cheaper elsewhere too as the discount didn't apply to external vendors http://mycom.nl/componenten/solid-state-drive/222211/kingston-v300-120gb they don't sell ssd bays ??? :s but there's a computer shop down the road from me so I'll have a look there tomorrow.

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primexx

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Cheers, it answered my question, I found it cheaper elsewhere too as the discount didn't apply to external vendors http://mycom.nl/componenten/solid-state-drive/222211/kingston-v300-120gb they don't sell ssd bays ??? confused.gif but there's a computer shop down the road from me so I'll have a look there tomorrow.

 

if you mean mounting brackets, you should not be spending more than $5 for it. And the brand doesn't need to match. Just get the cheapest one.

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DaveGreen93

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Cheers, it answered my question, I found it cheaper elsewhere too as the discount didn't apply to external vendors http://mycom.nl/componenten/solid-state-drive/222211/kingston-v300-120gb they don't sell ssd bays ??? :s but there's a computer shop down the road from me so I'll have a look there tomorrow.

 

Yeah I didn't bother with a tray at all in my build, instead I just placed the SSD sideways in the cable compartment section of the case, there's no moving parts so sound isn't going to be an issue where you place it.

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articuno1au

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I wouldn't bother.

 

If you aren't going to get something expensive, the latency on the card will be enough to offset the speed improvements.

 

Intel and AMD SATA controllers have direct access to RAM and such which allows them to hit peak speeds. I'd honestly not bother until you update to something with native support.

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Steven P. Administrators

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So the delivery didn't come this morning :/ Tracking showed it out for delivery and then it updated to Monday pfff

 

Anyway, removed one HDD that looks like it's on its way out (WD 500GB Caviar Blue), dusted it out and enabled qfan again, it's running pretty smoothly and quiet now :p Just the SSD to go.

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Steven P. Administrators

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While doing a search online to see if the SSD will be detected (bloody thing still hasn't arrived!) I came across my old thread and a few articles that seemed to point at AHCI mode not working for some people! :S I've always kept my BIOS up to date and have a modded 1305 one that fixes a few power management issues and updates the IDE controller firmware.

 

Been on AHCI for ages and never had issues with it. Looked and can confirm that Device Management also shows the IDE controller using a AHCI driver too, so I guess I'm good to go :)

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Grand Master

Steven P. Administrators

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Quick update, all installed and it is really quick, booting and shutting down is amazaballs fast! :D

 

BTW I taped the ssd down rather than getting a bay :P

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Grand Master

Steven P. Administrators

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Welcome to the master race :p

 

One recommendation for you if you use a spinning disk also:

mklink /j

Will make life easier.

What does that do? I have a spinning disk as my data drive (D:\).

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articuno1au

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It makes a symbolic link in NTFS.

 

For instance, all of my steam games are on my HDD (E:\), and I have an SSD for my OS (C:\).

mklink /j E:\Steam\Games\Dota2 C:\Cache\Dota2

This means that when the computer looks for Dota2 on my HDD, NTFS points it to the location on my SSD and it gets pulled from there.

 

The OS acts as though the files are at E:\Steam\Games even though they are actually on the SSD :)

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Grand Master

Steven P. Administrators

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OH it's a cache.. is that like a realtime sync then? Could be useful for the data folders I always host on a 2nd drive (Docs, My Pics etc).

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Steven P. Administrators

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I also have standalone programs folder (portable apps) but they start up from D:\ so would that also change to the cache automatically?

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