1. #1
    Brewmaster Majesticii's Avatar
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    SolidState upgrade

    Hello,

    Ill keep it brief, i'm currently still using a OCZ Vertex2 60GB drive. It's still fine, but a tad bit on the small side and i want to run games like WoW, Skyrim on the solid state drive, cause loadtimes and texture popins are annoying. And i also want to put this vertex in my laptop.
    I've set my eyes on a Samsung 840 Series Pro 256GB, problem is i only have 6 sataII/3gbs ports. Is it worth getting a sataIII controller (about 30euro)?
    And if so, anyone know a good brand for these? Currently only seeing "DeLock" in stock on the Dutch shops.

    Regards
    Maj.

  2. #2
    You'll never see the speed difference between SATA2 and SATA3 when playing games. Only if you move large files between two SSDs or when running benchmarks you can go over SATA2's maximum speed.

    I would just get the new SSD and use it in SATA2 port for now until you get new mobo. Just make sure you run the disc in AHCI mode, that makes bigger difference.
    Last edited by vesseblah; 2013-02-14 at 09:30 PM.
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  3. #3
    Bloodsail Admiral Killora's Avatar
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    I don't think you're going to get a SATA III controller that is worth a crap for that price. The cheap end SATA controllers tend to be slower than SATA2 and less reliable. Better off using it on SATA 2.
    Quote Originally Posted by vesseblah View Post
    You'll never see the speed difference between SATA2 and SATA3 when playing games. Only if you move large files between two SSDs or when running benchmarks you can go over SATA2's maximum speed.
    That's kind of a given.
    Last edited by Killora; 2013-02-14 at 09:29 PM.

  4. #4
    Brewmaster Majesticii's Avatar
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    So accestimes and HDD gaming performance will remain roughly the same? In that case i can just take the faster 840pro.

  5. #5
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    perhaps a PCI-e ssd if you don't want to bandwidth capped on sata 2?
    or perhaps go raid 0 with another one of your current ssd?

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Majesticii View Post
    So accestimes and HDD gaming performance will remain roughly the same? In that case i can just take the faster 840pro.
    Compared to HDD gaming from SSD will be like night and day difference, but you wont see any real difference between SATA2 and SATA3 SSD. Just take new SATA3 SSD like Samsung 840 now and you can use it in new SATA3 mobo later when you upgrade that.
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  7. #7
    Bloodsail Admiral Killora's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Majesticii View Post
    So accestimes and HDD gaming performance will remain roughly the same? In that case i can just take the faster 840pro.
    Largely. The biggest difference you'll see is OS boot times and large sequential file transfers. The faster SSD's still excel in random access times which is their biggest strongpoint.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Killora View Post
    Largely. The biggest difference you'll see is OS boot times and large sequential file transfers. The faster SSD's still excel in random access times which is their biggest strongpoint.
    WoW with 50+ addons loads from SSD about 10 times faster than HDD. When logging in, when zoning to cities or instances, reloading UI and when doing corpse runs. 50+ addons is easily 10k small files which is massive random access mess SSD makes fly.
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  9. #9
    Brewmaster Majesticii's Avatar
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    K, i will just go for the 840 then. Saves me 35 euro Thanks

  10. #10
    Bloodsail Admiral Killora's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by vesseblah View Post
    WoW with 50+ addons loads from SSD about 10 times faster than HDD. When logging in, when zoning to cities or instances, reloading UI and when doing corpse runs. 50+ addons is easily 10k small files which is massive random access mess SSD makes fly.
    Right,this. Access times will be significantly faster. So you will see a bonus over an HDD.

    Miswordered my post a little :/.

  11. #11
    Moderator chazus's Avatar
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    Yeah, the only time SATA 3.0 (currently) is useful is transferring something like a ton of movies. I considered getting a 3.0 drive when I bought my new 3TBs... but... That SATA3 aspect would only be useful for a one time shot
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  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by chazus View Post
    Yeah, the only time SATA 3.0 (currently) is useful is transferring something like a ton of movies. I considered getting a 3.0 drive when I bought my new 3TBs... but... That SATA3 aspect would only be useful for a one time shot
    It is a whole other deal when it comes to HDDs since they hardly even saturate SATA1. SATA3 on HDD is just a marketing ploy.

    As for the SSD question I fully agree with what vesseblah have said.
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  13. #13
    Seems like I can hit about 450meg/sec speed moving files between 250GB Samsung 830 and 120GB OCZ Agility 3 while both in SATA3 ports. Copying from HDD to SSD is limited by HDD's read speed to less than 100meg/sec, way below even SATA1's maximum.
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  14. #14
    Brewmaster Majesticii's Avatar
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    Yeah, just wanted to know if the gaming performance got hurt in teh process. I'm not going to be copying large files to it.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Majesticii View Post
    Yeah, just wanted to know if the gaming performance got hurt in teh process. I'm not going to be copying large files to it.
    Well... Pulling semi-fictional numbers out of thin air (I did measure these way back, but didnt write anything down)

    WoW + 50 addons load times from pressing login button to all players drawn on screen in busy city:

    fast HDD (Samsung Spinpoint F3) ~70 seconds
    old SATA2 SSD (Kingston V 60GB) ~14 seconds
    new SATA3 SSD (Samsung 830 250GB) ~12 seconds

    So yeah, there is a difference between SATA2 and SATA3 SSD, some might call it even significant when looking at percentages... But in real world you'll never notice the difference in the way you do comparing to HDD. And big part of why Samsung 830 is faster also comes from better controller chip and higher IOPS, not just raw throughput.
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  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by vesseblah View Post
    Well... Pulling semi-fictional numbers out of thin air (I did measure these way back, but didnt write anything down)

    WoW + 50 addons load times from pressing login button to all players drawn on screen in busy city:

    fast HDD (Samsung Spinpoint F3) ~70 seconds
    old SATA2 SSD (Kingston V 60GB) ~14 seconds
    new SATA3 SSD (Samsung 830 250GB) ~12 seconds

    So yeah, there is a difference between SATA2 and SATA3 SSD, some might call it even significant when looking at percentages... But in real world you'll never notice the difference in the way you do comparing to HDD. And big part of why Samsung 830 is faster also comes from better controller chip and higher IOPS, not just raw throughput.
    No there is a difference in NAND memory and CACHE between those 2 drives to do a PURE comparison you need the SAME drive on different controllers, as others have said you won't see any difference between SATA2 and SATA3... for WoW. Those load times are good, but you are changing the drive itself, and the controller, and probably your MoBo at the same time, not a FAIR comparison, lots of upgrades in there and not comparing on equal scale.

    I bet if you had a second kingston on that same SATA3 and did the same test, it will still be 14 seconds.

    Also RAW throughput and IOPS are the same thing.. you are talking about the number of transactions a disk can handle, throughput is the bandwidth a drive can handle simultaneous from different sources. MB/s is speed, but it's incorrectly tied to IOPS, not a relation. A SQL database can do 100,000 transactions, but it doesn't necessarily mean it can transfer LARGE data blocks PER cycle which is what MB/s measures, almost like DPS. I can do a large transfer at one time or several or a longer period, depends on how the app was designed.. I can do 100,000 damage to a boss. I can do it in 10 seconds or take a minute provide I have health to last the fight. MB/s (like DPS) measures how quickly you can get it done in short amount of time, 100,000 damage is 100K damage regardless of how long it took.

    MB/s depends on block size, drive, and application efficiency not ALL hardware related...so the best way to measure hard drive performance is by copying files. The REAL benefit of SSD isn't random read write or speed really.. it's NCQ, native command queuing.. ability to handle multiple inputs at once. So I can do a SQL database, a virtual machine, and copy a file to / from a SSD drive ALL at once, try that with a SATA or SAS drive, it will definitely start crying... SSD's can do many things at once, as long as your controller, MoBo and application (including OS) can handle the load simultaneously that is the TRUE benefit of SSD, ability to do many things and you don't know what is happening.

    The reason mechanical drives suck is because swap files are very demanding, at times when pages start those reads / writes to paging data is frequent, causing thrashing of the disk. During this time the disk is useless since a mechanical arm has to move the reader back fourth many times (just like a range during a really complex boss fight) reducing overall performance signifcantly.

    Since the nand chips on a good SSD drive can reference data at < 0.004 ms access range times, you have VERY little latency or lag in the throughput allowing SSD to respond to many requests, and the data doesn't degrade due to de-fragmentation.

    SSD's have really no downside (low power, cooler, no moving parts, defrag not needed, high IOPS, low response and ability to load balance on the fly) other than cost.
    Last edited by rjparker1; 2013-02-15 at 08:36 PM.

  17. #17
    I didn't notice that much performance with my agility 3 between sata 2 to sata 3 when I upgraded my rig. If you really need the speed of sata 3, ain't it possible to buy a thunderbolt card and connect ssd to it?

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Faithh View Post
    I didn't notice that much performance with my agility 3 between sata 2 to sata 3 when I upgraded my rig. If you really need the speed of sata 3, ain't it possible to buy a thunderbolt card and connect ssd to it?
    If you get the OCZ vertex you can utilize the FULL bandwidth of your SATA3 as well... Agility 3 can do it pretty well just not as good as Vertex.

    WoW is not disk intensive so you will not see a difference while playing.. the more memory you have also helps alleviate disk R/W as well..

  19. #19
    Moderator chazus's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Faithh View Post
    I didn't notice that much performance with my agility 3 between sata 2 to sata 3 when I upgraded my rig. If you really need the speed of sata 3, ain't it possible to buy a thunderbolt card and connect ssd to it?
    You probably wont. You'd be going from 300 to 500ish... when HDD's are like... 100 max. The SSD is so much faster that going to 500 will honestly provide pretty small benefit. SATA3 is pretty standard now, however I probably wouldnt upgrade hardware JUST to have it.
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