Ssd sata3 in a sata 1 laptop

davidhilton68

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Feb 27, 2012
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Sorry if this is a naive post, been going around in circles for a while.

I have a 3 year old laptop, the advent 6555 which does have sata 1 support. I was thinking of popping in an ssd, I know the connectors are compatible and have seen some warnings about sata 2 not being 100% backward compatible due to controller issues but .. if I pop in a low cost sata 3 ssd, is it going to max the bandwidth and fly better than buying a more expensive but top if its class sata 1 sdd ?

Many thanks for any input.
 

k1114

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Sata 1 ssds will be really buggy, it was a new technology then. Even if you could find them, I wouldn't recommend it but you shouldn't have any issues with a sata 2/3 ssd. The newer ssds will be faster but it's negligible in normal pc uses, they will all be about the same. You would need to say which models to have solid info. The advent 6555 should be sata 2, I can't really find the info but with the cpu, q9000, the compatible chipset has sata 2.
 

nukemaster

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Most SSD's suffer from compatibility issues in one way or another. Just look at the sandforce BSOD bug(And the fact that they need new firmware all the time), Intels 8Megabyte bug and the 50XX hour bug on some other drives. It is kind of the cost of adopting new technology. Worst part is it is hard to track it down since some systems mess up and others do not.

That said, i have an old Kingston V100(Not the + model) in an old SATA 1 system and it works(very noticeable improvement, but it is best to make sure to optimize XP so it does not cause too much random writing). Based on user reports, the V200 is buggy and should be avoided for now.

If the system is XP, make sure to check out some SSD guides for XP and align the drive properly.

Lsi on the NCIX forums recommends Intel 320 or Vertex Plus drives for older systems. Those are SATA 2 drives.

If the Kingston drive on the old HP system is any indication, most SSD's will be able to max the controller(sata 1) on the board anyway.
 

davidhilton68

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Feb 27, 2012
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Thanks for the info, the machine was a good buy at £550 and I already have a SSD in there, the Samsung MMCRE28G, the AS SSD benchmark has it as 187MB/s read, 20 MB/s write, which is pretty poor on the writing side hence I am keen to upgrade the disk if I can (working at a .com just now and have to use my own kit, lots of compiling, 10 min ant tasks etc).

The exact details of the 6555 are hazy, as you would expect from anything from PC world;

http://www.adventsupport.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4736&p=11629&hilit=6555#p11629

it is described as "Advent 6555 === MicroStar 1722 chassis (similar to Microstar GT725)"


And the description of the 1722 certain seems a good fit;
http://www.msiwhitebook.com/product_spec.asp?model=MS-1722-ID1

If it is a 1722, then there is a good chance it has SATA2 support
http://forum.notebookreview.com/msi/343349-official-1722-gx720-lounge.html

But so far this is the only post that mentioned it so I am not being over-hopeful, I have seen other posts that identify it as SATA 150 :(. I can't see anything from the usual windows device manager that indicates one way or ther other and needless to say, the official PC World / techGuys resources are worthless.

The 1722 is also said to be similar to the MSI GX720
http://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=121561.0

and again, exactly which SATA controller, not sure.

I am tempted with a cheap SATA3 since there is little price difference and they are easier to get hold of. If I do I will share my findings :) <or mistakes>
 

davidhilton68

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Feb 27, 2012
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Solutions

For anyone wandering here subsequently, I did indeed upgrade and got an excellent result.

I swapped out the old Sata1 disk and swapped in the Sata 3, and though it would only go as fast as the existing Sata controller would allow, that was plenty fast !

My build time dropped by minutes and my Windows usability rating went from 5.9 to 7.7 (for the disk)

Anyone familiar with AS SSD will understand the following stats ;

Old Samsung MMCRE28G5MXP

Read Write
seq 187.97 20.94
4k 13.57 3.58
4k-64Thrd 12.34 0.48
Acc.time 0.366 2.123
score 45 6
Overall 72


New OCZ Agility3

Read Write
seq 190.26 134.92
4k 12.54 32.19
4k-64Thrd 85.85 122.13
Acc.time 0.182 0.361
score 117 168
Overall 347

Hope someone else finds this useful and many thanks to the kind guidance these contributors in this thread.
 

santiagos

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Sep 10, 2012
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Hi davidhilton68.
I´m asking myself about upgrading my old sata1 hdd disk to a sata3 ssd in an old sata1 controller.
I´ve read your post and I am not sure if your machine is sata2 or sata1.
Could you say if you know that?
If its sata1 I will also buy an agility 3.
Thanks and enjoy the speed.

 

k1114

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The benchmarks are not exceeding sata 1 speed so I guess he really does have sata 1. It has a theoretical max of 192MB/s and his benchmark went to 190. Sata 2 can go to a theoretical 384MB/s which the agility 3 is be able to get to over 500+.
128kread.png
 

santiagos

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Sep 10, 2012
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Its true but I´m doubting because the manufacturer says is backward compatible to sata2 only. In some page, I can´t remember, I read could be problems with sata1. That´s why I´d like to know if davidhilton68 motherboard is sata1 and if he didn´t have problem.
Thanks for your info.
 

k1114

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He said it's sata 1 on the first post and he's getting sata 1 speeds. If he had sata 2 he would get sata 2 speeds. Sata is backwards compatible with all versions and you can even google lots of other people using the agility 3 on sata 1 with no issues. I tried to google issues but have found nothing.
 

nukemaster

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Closes thing i EVER heard of is some Macs(Nvidia chipset) getting put down to SATA1(1.5) speed with SATA3(6) drives on SATA2(3) systems. Its a speed negotiation issue.

But yeah
1 SATA2 backwards to SATA1
2 SATA3 backwards to SATA2.
goto 1

Its endless :)