[ SOLVED ] HDD or SSD

[Wirezfree]

@Austin Payne,

These are my measured speeds on my best PC with SATA3

This is my SSD(Samsung 850Pro):
dave@sm-xh97:~$ sudo hdparm -t /dev/sda
[sudo] password for dave:
/dev/sda:
 Timing buffered disk reads: 1560 MB in  3.00 seconds = 519.37 MB/sec
dave@sm-xh97:~$

This is my HD(Western Digital - Black)
dave@sm-xh97:~$ sudo hdparm -t /dev/sdb
/dev/sdb:
 Timing buffered disk reads: 344 MB in  3.00 seconds = 114.48 MB/sec
dave@sm-xh97:~$

I dug this out of my PC notes, the 3 flavours of SATA(max speeds)
SATA1 or SATA/150 = 1,5Gbps or 150MB/s
SATA2 or SATA/300 = 3,0Gbps or 300MB/s
SATA3 or SATA/600 = 6,0Gbps or 600MB/s

I could use SATA1 for the HD, but for SSD it would be a bottleneck.

Remember they quote Gbps for SATA not MB/s

[shaggytwodope]

Thinking of buying a new internal drive.

Have always used HDD but thinking  about SSD.

Will SSD work okay on older machines....?.

Grateful for any advice.

Jocklad

In a much older machine you might have sata3, altho backwards compatable... won't get the most out of the ssd as you'd want. Altho it's still much better and faster then nearly all hd's. An ssd will benefit the most of a sata6 capable motherboard. But basicly going ssd for more speed is always GOOD. But you will have less space without spending much more money then an hd.

[Austin Payne]

I hate to disagree with someone on here, but even just regular sata has a theoretical top speed of 2g/s. Not many consumer grade SSDs have a top speed higher than that. Also you might want to get a small SSD and a HDD for mass storge, or if you have a NAS you might think about using that.

[torreydale]

To Jocklad,

You might also want to consider SSHD (Solid State Hybrid Drive).

[Jocklad]

 Thanks  Wirezfree.

 Will have a good look at that.

 Jocklad 

[Wirezfree]

Hi,

Yes, they can work on older machines.
But to get the best out of SSD drives you really need SATA-III
Check how your current drive(s) are connected.
SATA connectors look like this. "Pictures"

You may get an idea in:
Menu > System > System Information and look in PCI Devices
or
If you have no docs for your PC/Laptop
Go into BIOS,
It may show drive & settings details in there


Info:
Most SSD's come in 2.5" format, so may need adapter if you have 3.5" slots
You can also get SSD's in mSATA format, for new PC with slot's on Motherboard
There are even new high spec m2 format, for mini sockets on motherboards.


and interesting things like these to put RAID in a 2.5" format with 2 X mSATA cards

[Jocklad]

Thinking of buying a new internal drive.

Have always used HDD but thinking  about SSD.

Will SSD work okay on older machines....?.

Grateful for any advice.

Jocklad