SATA II or III on late 2010 MBP - Also SATA III and SSD performance

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Level 1

7 points

SATA II or III on late 2010 MBP - Also SATA III and SSD performance

Hello:
I would like to confirm that only the new 2011 MBP's have 6gb SATA interfaces. My MBP reports Series 5 and 3gb on both optical and HD bay. I have an SSD in the optical bay and a WD Scorpio Black in the HD slot. Both have a negotiated link speed of 3gb. I put the SSD in the optical bracket and the spinning drive in the real drive slot to take advantages of the physical protection in the HD bay.

If the new MBP's have one SATA III channel, I would assume it's important to put the SSD in that slot.

My SSD has a SATA II (3gb) interface. Some new ones have 6gb. Do SSD drives even approach that throughput or 3gb throughput? Which leads to the question, would a SATA III SSD perform better in a SATA III MBP?

I know the benchmarks may not even be noticeable in real life use for most of us 🙂

MBP i7, Mac OS X (10.6.6), SSD, 8th

Posted on Mar 30, 2011 9:42 AM

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Answer 1

Brumey Author

Level 1

7 points

Apr 21, 2011 6:30 PM in response to Brumey

Guess its unknown or not important.

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Answer 2

boontech

Level 1

5 points

Apr 23, 2011 4:49 AM in response to Brumey

I have just out a SSD on my 2010 MBP, from all the info i could find both the HDD and optibay in the 2010 late SATA II, this is the reason i put my SSD in the optibay as the speed would be the same.

I did think about getting a SATA III SSD for the future when i upgrade but at the time they were very expensive and i had read reports about problems connecting to a SATA II.

The new MBP do only have SATA III in the HDD spot so this would be the best place for any SATA III SSD.

Personally on a 2010 MBP im happy, i still get great speeds Vs a HDD but with keeping the HDD in its original spot i get to keep spin down and the motion sensor.

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Answer 3

FirmTek

Level 1

40 points

Apr 23, 2011 5:40 AM in response to Brumey

>Which leads to the question, would a SATA III SSD perform better in a SATA III MBP?

Hi,

Yes, a new 6G SSD will perform faster in the 2011 MacBook Pro. The earlier MacBook Pro models offer SATA II connections which usually top out near 250MB/s or less. With the 2011 Apple 17" MacBook Pro you can also use the new FirmTek SeriTek/6G ExpressCard that can provide external storage read performance as high as 380MB/s.

The earlier MacBook Pro models are great. However, if you want higher SSD performance the 2011 MacBook Pro is certainly worth a look.

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Answer 4

dm_dimon

Level 1

8 points

Jul 12, 2011 7:50 AM in response to Brumey

to be exact - you'll benefit from SATA III SSD even on SATA II MBP.

This is simple - all (exept crucial C300) sata3 SSDs are built on new generation of controllers. Previos gen controllers just can't achive more than around 225 Mb/s writing speeds and only best of prev gen drives can saturate sata 2 bus on reading - achieving 260-270 Mb/s speeds. At the same time, ANY of new sata3 drives will fully utilise sata2 bus - around 270/270 read/write speed, anytime, warranted. So you will get a +20% writing speed at least - and probably more, this is the least benefit you can get - in case your's previos drive was exactly Crucial C300 256 Gb

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Answer 5

May 3, 2015 6:51 AM in response to dm_dimon

Some SATAIII SSD (with sandforce) do not behave well when connected to a SATAII bus. You get spinning ball, freezes and lockups. Reinstalled from Apple, image server and USB...same problem no matter what medium i used.

Tried my Kingston ssdnow v300 256 in these models:

MB 13" mid 2010 (2 different computer)

MBP 13" mid 2010 (2 different computers)

SSD works in a MBP 13" early 2011 (it has SATAIII) and in a PC.

Kingston verified that SATAIII SSD's with sandforce "might" have issues when installed in a computer with SATAII.

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