SSD: Sata II card vs. III

A SATA III SSD would be backwardly compatible with a SATA II controller, but would perform only at SATA II speeds and limits. You can also attach a SATA II HDD to a SATA III controlled. and you would still only have SATA II speeds and throughput.

You would only get about half to two thirds of the throughput if you put a SATA III SSD on a SATA II controller. Kind of a waste after spending all that money on the SSD.

Please post the model number of the Vantec SATA 2 PCIe card so more detailed information can be provided.

Modern 3rd generation solid state drives require 4 channels as in PCIe 2.0 x4 (or PCIe 3.0 x4 ) for optimal performance. There are low budget and entry level SATA cards that have just 2 channels. In addition there are some cards that have 4 channels but as soon as a second device is connected the channels are split so each device has only 2 channels.

That's alright, I'm ancient too, and so is my computer. The Vantec card model # is: UGT-ST300.
now I'm wondering if my mobo is

There may be a boot problem too. It is not always possible to use a drive connected to a card as a boot device. Whether or not the drive can be used as a primary boot drive depends on the motherboard's system BIOS. There may or may not be BIOS settings for such a configuration.

If you have a motherboard that supports solid state drives and an unused SATA port on the motherboard, then you would be better off connecting the ssd to the SATA port on the motherboard. That would eliminate most of the problems associated with add-on cards.

SATA 3 6Gb/s ssd's are backwards compatible with SATA 2 3Gb/s. However, the ssd performance will be restricted to SATA 2 levels. Typically a consumer would not notice the difference between SATA 2 and SATA 3 performance. One would have to run synthetic benchmarks designed to grossly exaggerate minor difference in order to measure them. It would be different if the user was a rocket scientist or a Hollywood film editor.

EDIT - I think I made a mistake and got things mixed up. It is very easy to get confused at my age. It is supposed to be PCIe x2 for standard ssd's and PCIe x4 for PCIe ssd's.

In the meantime while checking for new hardware reviews a little while ago I found a review over at Maximum PC for a fairly new PCIe adapter card designed expressly for ssd's. It will also let the ssd function as the primary boot drive. It looks promising. Here is the link:

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/%5Bprimary-term%5D/apricorn_velocity_solo_x2_pcie_ssd_adapter_review

NOTE - You'll have to check the system requirements.

Please post the model number of the Vantec SATA 2 PCIe card so more detailed information can be provided.

Modern 3rd generation solid state drives require 4 channels as in PCIe 2.0 x4 (or PCIe 3.0 x4 ) for optimal performance. There are low budget and entry level SATA cards that have just 2 channels. In addition there are some cards that have 4 channels but as soon as a second device is connected the channels are split so each device has only 2 channels.

There may be a boot problem too. It is not always possible to use a drive connected to a card as a boot device. Whether or not the drive can be used as a primary boot drive depends on the motherboard's system BIOS. There may or may not be BIOS settings for such a configuration.

If you have a motherboard that supports solid state drives and an unused SATA port on the motherboard, then you would be better off connecting the ssd to the SATA port on the motherboard. That would eliminate most of the problems associated with add-on cards.

SATA 3 6Gb/s ssd's are backwards compatible with SATA 2 3Gb/s. However, the ssd performance will be restricted to SATA 2 levels. Typically a consumer would not notice the difference between SATA 2 and SATA 3 performance. One would have to run synthetic benchmarks designed to grossly exaggerate minor difference in order to measure them. It would be different if the user was a rocket scientist or a Hollywood film editor.

EDIT - I think I made a mistake and got things mixed up. It is very easy to get confused at my age. It is supposed to be PCIe x2 for standard ssd's and PCIe x4 for PCIe ssd's.

In the meantime while checking for new hardware reviews a little while ago I found a review over at Maximum PC for a fairly new PCIe adapter card designed expressly for ssd's. It will also let the ssd function as the primary boot drive. It looks promising. Here is the link:

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/%5Bprimary-term%5D/apricorn_velocity_solo_x2_pcie_ssd_adapter_review

NOTE - You'll have to check the system requirements.

More Bad news.

Your motherboard is an older AMD 939/758 board that was released in 2007 prior to the advent of consumer oriented solid state drives. Although the board is SATA 2 3Gb/s capable, the capability does not include ssd's. Support was limited to hard disk drives and optical drives. There are no motherboard system BIOS updates, chipset updates, or drivers that would help.

Yeah, I wondered when I saw that it was a GeForce6150 SE. I used to have a couple of those, I think well before 2007, back when I used to buy the Athlon XP3000+. That's a very old board.