SSD in mSATA drive - your experience and thoughts

yk300 on 25/01/2014 - 22:56

Hello fellow ozbargainers,

I have a few questions about mSata drives and since the community here is very computer savy, I thought I'd ask. I was looking into the HORIZE W670SR 17.3" NOTEBOOK deal and was thinking about buying the HDDs from MSY and install them myself. I am assuming that the laptop comes with a manual and the process should be simple enough.

  • Why is mSATA unpopular? My google search gave me some answers I was looking for but there does not seem to be much in contrast with other technology.
  • In theory if a mSATA and a SATA disks have the same Read/Write speed, the performance should be the same. In your experience/in the real world, do you find that to be true?
  • If Intel 525 Series 120GB SSD 550/500 Mbs Read/Write - $249.00 is added in the mSATA drive, it cost $249.00 and if Intel 120GB 530 Series SSD 550/480 Mbs Read/Write is chosen in the SATA drive, it cost $239.00. A side question: is the slight difference in write speed worth the extra $10???
  • Let's say both drives have the same write speed, it seems to be that mSATA is better (assuming same performance is achieved). There is only the option of SSD for mSATA drives (at least when it comes to storage?). If I choose the SSD in the SATA drive, then I have no flexibility of adding a non-SSD drive later (let's assume I do not want to sacrifice my DVD drive). Using the mSATA would provide a better flexibility for future storage upgrades. Am I missing something here? The extra $10 seems to be worth it.
Computing

Comments

  • resubaehtgnolhcs on 25/01/2014 - 23:29

    whirlpool forums might help

  • oringal on 26/01/2014 - 00:30
    +1

    they have to create new motherboards to support it… most laptops which use mSATA are ultrabooks because of the size.

    yes the performance is similar, its using the design of SATA 3, the connector is just smaller.

    its extremely hard to see the difference in real world use. this would only matter if you do stuff like video editing or graphics type work where you are dealing with large file sizes.

  • _Bruce_ on 26/01/2014 - 08:10
    +2

    Why is mSATA unpopular? My google search gave me some answers I was looking for but there does not seem to be much in contrast with other technology.

    It is popular for new laptops, but much more stuff out there has SATA, so it is a small section of the market.

    In theory if a mSATA and a SATA disks have the same Read/Write speed, the performance should be the same. In your experience/in the real world, do you find that to be true?

    I have mSATA and SATA SSDs, but they are very different. I can tell you though that mSATA is SATA with a smaller size, so there should be no difference at all.

    If Intel 525 Series 120GB SSD 550/500 Mbs Read/Write - $249.00 is added in the mSATA drive, it cost $249.00 and if Intel 120GB 530 Series SSD 550/480 Mbs Read/Write is chosen in the SATA drive, it cost $239.00. A side question: is the slight difference in write speed worth the extra $10???

    No.

    Let's say both drives have the same write speed, it seems to be that mSATA is better (assuming same performance is achieved). There is only the option of SSD for mSATA drives (at least when it comes to storage?). If I choose the SSD in the SATA drive, then I have no flexibility of adding a non-SSD drive later (let's assume I do not want to sacrifice my DVD drive). Using the mSATA would provide a better flexibility for future storage upgrades. Am I missing something here? The extra $10 seems to be worth it.

    This is the whole reason for mSATA to even exist, without it you wouldn't be able to add a second drive at all.

    I will add that you can get much better deals for a SATA SSD, just because there are a lot more off the shelf products available.

  • ethereal88 on 26/01/2014 - 09:27
    +2

    I doubt it comes with a manual. Its a few screws and 10min work. You don't need step by step pictures. I wouldn't buy any laptop without mSATA in 2014. Put a 120GB+ SSD in there for Windows, stick a 500GB or 1TB 2.5" HDD for bulk storage and you have speed and capacity.

    • mrmarkau67 on 26/01/2014 - 09:54

      My 3 year old Dell has mSATA. I wouldn't buy a new laptop in 2014 without a PCIe SSD.

      • _Bruce_ on 26/01/2014 - 11:05

        Why? Most SSDs won't see much (if any) difference.

        • mrmarkau67 on 26/01/2014 - 11:40

          SSDs have a lot more bandwidth available than what is possible through SATA. If you have a PCIe drive you can take better advantage of the full bandwidth. Boot times, wake from hibernation, reading of large files into memory will all be faster.

          http://www.anandtech.com/show/7085/the-2013-macbook-air-revi…

        • _Bruce_ on 27/01/2014 - 08:44

          Here is an article* showing that benchmarks improve, but real world results hardly change:

          http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-upgrade-sata-3gbps,3…

          "Right off the bat, we see it really doesn't matter if you're using 3 or 6 Gb/s transfers when it comes to Windows 8's boot time."

          * Article is SATA2 vs SATA3, but theory is the same, only even more so for SATA3 vs PCIe.

        • mrmarkau67 on 27/01/2014 - 15:30

          PCIe offers double the transfer speeds of SATA3. Most real world applications are dominated by latency rather than transfer speed, but its nice to know that the extra performance is there for when you need it. You'll see other OEMs follow Apple and Sony down the PCIe route as time goes on. My old Dell, with 2 SSDs inside, is fine for me for now, but when I upgrade I really want to upgrade!

  • [Deactivated] on 28/01/2014 - 01:18

    The difference is basically this:
    1. The mSATA isn't as highly produced so is slightly more expensive/GB
    2. Because of 1 mSATA is usually always there as an optional extra, not usually the only means of storage
    3. This makes it perfect to buy a 32-64GB SSD and use it as a cache in there.

    I know everyone is sceptical of new things, but seriously give it a go. You won't regret it.

  • airzone on 29/01/2014 - 23:19

    I have a 240GB msata ssd, a 240GB sata ssd, and a 1tb economy disk in my laptop.

    One thing to note is that my msata port was intended to be used by a cache device, and while it works fine for a primary boot drive now, it was a bit rough a few bios versions ago.. performance was great, but the boot path kept getting dropped and I'd have to manually reset it in my bios. Laptop is a Dell inspiron 7720.

    I got the other ssd for free, so it's just used to store the steam games I'm currently playing.

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