Is A SATA 3Gb/s Platform Still Worth Upgrading With An SSD?

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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: PCMark 7 And Trace

The 840 Pro’s performance is a bit higher attached to the 6 Gb/s port compared to the 3 Gb/s connection under PCMark 7, though the difference is small.

The overview shows that loading applications and importing pictures in Windows Photo Gallery happens faster over a SATA 6Gb/s port than a 3 Gb/s connection. Of course, even then, the throughput-constrained SSD is still way faster than a hard drive.

Our gaming trade only favors the 6 Gb/s port by a bit.