Is A SATA 3Gb/s Platform Still Worth Upgrading With An SSD?
Today's fastest SSDs already bounce off the SATA 6Gb/s interface's throughput ceiling. Does a 3 Gb/s link kill the performance of those drives? We run a number of synthetic and real-world tests to assess the damage when you upgrade an older platform.
Results: AS-SSD Copy Benchmark
Samsung's 840 Pro is about two-thirds faster connected to a SATA 6Gb/s port than the 3 Gb/s connection when it comes to AS-SSD's copy benchmark.
Western Digital's VelociRaptor is attached to a 6 Gb/s SATA port, but its mechanical nature clearly limits performance.
Meanwhile, the 840 Pro is constrained by a 3 Gb/s connection, which becomes obvious next to the 6 Gb/s numbers. Nevertheless, performance on the previous-gen link is still markedly better than today's fastest disk drive operating at full tilt.
This benchmark is mainly relevant to folks who copy large chunks of data to or from their SSD, and it's quite clear that the 6 Gb/s interface's faster data rate makes a practical difference.
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