New generation SSD vs current mobo options

[varis]

Vertex 2 is today pretty cheap in the 60GB installment. Could be a nice idea to buy one now, then get another SSD late spring, whatever seems the best buy then. But...

Quite a few current mobos only have SATA II (3 Gb/s). For example, all H55 models from Asus seem limited to that. Going for H57 would bump up the price some 50e, making the plan quite expensive, and not really worth it.

Will all (most?) next generation SSDs be using SATA III? The current generation, approaching 300 MB/s speeds according to spec, would be very near the limits of SATA II so either SATA III or PCIe would be needed for a drastic performance increase.

Will owners of today's hardware be happy with just bigger capacities and decreased prices when the new SSD models hit the market next spring? If current pricing gives any clue, the current generation of drives will be just 10-20e cheaper than the latest bells&whistles models, ie. not very competitively priced.

Does this make the whole upgrade path unappealing?

 

[gribs]

Interestingly, this was the exact same unanswered question I erased a short while ago.

It is true that some of the SATAII SSDs are pretty much at the extent of their capabilities. But thats all I can really say. I just scrapped a well priced Agility 2 120Gb because I'm not convinced that I know enough about what is going on developmentally to have made the right choice buying now.

Needless to say, right now it's a bigger investment than most. I think I can wait until it isn't.

 

[varis]

Well it seems uncertain which SATA interface the next generation of SSDs will be using. Some manufacturers just haven't said anything about their upcoming models. But Intel's G3 I heard is to be on SATA II.

If you have an old mobo, you could wait until current drives are dirt cheap and add capacity at that time. But there is no telling where prices will go - maybe the latest and greatest still won't be much more expensive than the old models - it might make more sense to just do a full system upgrade than to add a legacy SSD to your old system by that time.

 

[gribs]

Well, with the wave of SATA III mainboards, mine included (ASUS Sabretooth), maybe the theoretical SATA II path Intel is taking will leave them at a disadvantage with the growing SATA III market. Problem is, I'm not sure which big SSD company will make the move first.

But when I sit back and think about it, the bandwidth of SATA II is still rather powerful. I'd love to have things advance to SATA III, but few SSDs capabilities make that move look necessary. Right? Maybe as you said, companies will mostly stick around the 300MBps limit for a while longer perfecting the SSD itself, I'd be content with lower costs and a more reliable unit. Unfortunately, we are often left in the dark on those plans. So again I'm hopeful, but I dunno, I'm just having a good time chatting about uncertainties.

Do you have any favorites other than Vertex? (I know that one is hard to top.)