T410 SATA bus

[FunkyRes]

I'm having trouble finding out the internal bus speed of a T410 - is it SATA II or SATA III?

Basically trying to figure out whether I'd benefit at all from faster SSD's or if I just need one that can saturate SATA II (most if not all).

Also, is it capable of mSATA in the WWAN slot? I don't think so but I thought I'd ask.

[ZaZ]

It's SATA II, but unlikely you'd ever notice a difference between the two for most uses. The benefit of a SSD is the latency, how fast data can be found and read. Since the latency for all SSDs is like .1ms, they're all fast regardless of whether it's SATA I, II or III. The throughput, how much data can pass through the controller in a given moment in time and is often used as benchmark for SSDs doesn't effect typical usage because most things like Office, Internet, Media, etc., don't put much of a load on the controller, so the better speed of SATA III won't be noticeable for most uses.

It has to be a Sandy Bridge or newer ThinkPad to get the mSATA SSD option. I'm afraid the T410s doesn't qualify. You could put a small SSD in the main bay and replace the optical drive with another hard drive using the modular caddy.

[FunkyRes]

My understanding is that some SSDs can sustained saturate a SATA II bus and achieve faster than SATA II speeds on a SATA III bus.
But if T410 is SATAII then might as well go with less expensive.

[FunkyRes]

From newegg data on Intel 520 series:

Max Sequential Read
Up to 550 MB/s (SATAIII)
Up to 280 MB/s (SATAII)
Max Sequential Write
Up to 500 MB/s (SATAIII)
Up to 260 MB/s (SATAII)

Those SATAII numbers aren't really better than SATAII only drives, so if SATAII is what I'm going to get, no point in paying for SATAIII capabilities (assuming a price difference). That's all I needed to know.

[ZaZ]

My understanding is that some SSDs can sustained saturate a SATA II bus and achieve faster than SATA II speeds on a SATA III bus.

You're missing the point, the throughput has very little effect on how fast the machine feels. Most usage won't saturate the bus, so it's irrelevant whether it's SATA II or III cause either can handle the load. As an example, my R60e, which is SATA I feels just as fast if not faster, due to the low overhead Linux it's running, than my SATA II X220i.

[Cigarguy]

On a machine only capable of SATA II it doesn't matter if it's a SATA II or SATA III HDD. Get the cheapest one in the capacity that you need. If you go with SATA III, it maybe handy down the road as you can put it in your new upgraded rig. But like ZAK said, the speed difference is minimal unless you are constantly transferring big files.

[jayton4]

From my recent experience, the SATA III drives have been at or below the cost of older SATA II drives. There are many more differences than just sustained transfer speed.

What Zaz is saying is that it is all about the random reads, measured in IOPS (Input/output Operations Per Second). An OS drive has millions of files smaller than 4KB that a traditional drive has to hunt and peck for, with seek times causing the delay. The SSD's do not have any seek time, which is where the main speed advantage is coming from.

Another point, the SATA II drives and their controllers were designed a couple of years before the SATA III drives. The new controllers in the SATA III drives have much better wear leveling algorithms and are a lot better at sustaining the high speeds after several months of use. Over time, the SATA II drives would more often need a "secure erase" in order to restore the high speeds.

I have a SATA III drive in both my T410s and my T410, and it is the only way I would go. There are plenty of people out there that will tell you that it doesn't matter what SSD you get, that they all give the same user experience. I used to work in electronics sales and had the opportunity to test every brand and model of SSD, and I can tell you there is a real difference in user experience beyond just benchmark numbers. A Crucial v4 is going to be a noticeable difference from a SF-2281 based drive.

[ZaZ]

there is a real difference in user experience beyond just benchmark numbers.

While I've not tested every brand, that has not been my experience. My desktops have SATA III drives and they seem no better or worse than my SATA II X220i or other SATA II and III laptops I've used/review.

[Cigarguy]

This mirror my experience too. I have 7 Thinkpads each with a SSD and 4 desktops, 3 with SSD. Yes there was a huge improvement between HDD to SSD, nice improvement from SATA I to SATA II, hardly noticeable (except on benchmarks) between SATA II to SATA III.

I use and abuse my SSDs. When buying I look for the cheapest name brand in the capacity that I need.

[ajkula66]

A Crucial v4 is going to be a noticeable difference from a SF-2281 based drive.

Maybe for you.

I wouldn't take either of them to use in my own machine if someone paid me to.

[jayton4]

While I've not tested every brand, that has not been my experience. My desktops have SATA III drives and they seem no better or worse than my SATA II X220i or other SATA II and III laptops I've used/review.

Every brand is actually a stretch. I have never tested Muskin or OWC drives. I have tested MOST of what was released over the last 3 years in the 2.5" SSDs from Kingston, OCZ, Intel, Corsair (except Neutron Series), Samsung (except 840 series), Patriot, Crucial, PNY, SanDisk, and a few others. I admit that my use of the word "every" is an exaggeration.

Maybe for you.

I wouldn't take either of them to use in my own machine if someone paid me to.

I think we have already had that discussion on another thread. Sandforce is the only controller with design wins on any of the latest drives from Intel and several other brands. The enterprise class PCI-e 4x cards feature multiple SF-2281 controllers that perform very reliably.

The line between a noticeable difference and a measurable difference can be drawn in different places for different people. I do not think it is really worth debating whether a SATA II drive would perform as well as a SATA III drive on a SATA II bus since the prices of the SATA III drives are oftentimes priced LESS than the SATA II drives. I got my OCZ Vertex 3 120GB drives on sale for $50 each, my Agility 4 256GB was $109, and that is without any mail in rebates, as I don't fill those out. The Samsung 840 series 120GB is $95 right now on Newegg while the cheapest SATA II drive in that capacity class is the awful Crucial v4 128GB for $100.

[ajkula66]

I think we have already had that discussion on another thread. Sandforce is the only controller with design wins on any of the latest drives from Intel and several other brands. The enterprise class PCI-e 4x cards feature multiple SF-2281 controllers that perform very reliably.

Well, yes and no.

Crucial V4 (which is a piece of garbage IMO) doesn't utilize a SF controller, so you can't really state that I'm biased against SF...

Which I most certainly am.

Anyone who takes a few hours to read all the horror stories on NewEgg on various SSDs using SF controller - regardless of manufacturer - would likely question their reliability. Mind you, those were posted the folks who actually bought them...to have, in most cases their machine bluescreen and then stop "seeing" the drive in a record amount of time.

SF-based OCZs and Mushkins are at the point that they can't be given away to anyone who knows the first thing about SSDs, which is: once it dies, kiss your data goodbye. And, unlike conventional hard drives (in most cases) it will not give out a warning of any kind before it kicks the bucket.

Intels - due to name recognition and past history - are doing a bit better, but there are quite a few complaints about them as well.

I could go a lot further than this, but it would serve no useful purpose in this particular thread.

The real issue here is not whether one should spend $$ for a SATA III drive that is to be used on a SATA II chipset, but what the most reliable drive on the market is.

Most people I know would agree that Samsung 830 - if one can find an unsealed example at a reasonable price - would fit that bill.

[Cigarguy]

The early firmware for Sandforce 22XX controllers were definitely prone to random BSOD. I can attest to that. Later firmware updates have, on the most part, corrected this.

As for reliability. I don't trust any device. Everything will fail, it is just a matter of time. That's why I back up anything of value, back up the back up and finally back that up again. Took a bit to set everything up for all my machines but once that is done I don't even pay attention to it. Every few months I'll check to make sure the backups are as they should be.

Flash based storage will fail differently than disk base storage. You can't hear the drive whining and grinding. There's no platter to read off of. Especially difficult are multilevel cells. But I would still not go back for HDD for OS and program drive. The performance boost is well worth the risk. Again backup is key.

[ZaZ]

I know people like to rag on OCZ, but I've had eight to ten of their SSDs and none has given me any trouble, except the original Core, which stuttered badly. They're as fast as any other SSD I've seen. They're just boot drives and I don't keep anything on them except the OS, but as noted, backing up anything you can't afford to lose is a good idea.

[FunkyRes]

I'm probably going Intel for the SSD. There's an Intel SSD in my T520 and I put a 520 series into a desktop. Limited experience, but good in both cases.

At newegg it does indeed look like the 520 series that handles SATA III is cheaper than the 320 series that is SATA II.

OS (Fedora) is going on the SSD with /home on a platter drive in the UltraBay (I'll probably make a /admin on the SSD to be home for one one user so I can easily log in as non root if platter drive dies)

Anyway, large files thus are more likely to end up on the platter drive than the SSD so the SSD performance benefits won't help with them.

Thanks for clarification on the mSATA, I figured T410 was just too early, but it might have been nice to put a small one in for misc. use.

[jayton4]

Well, yes and no.

Crucial V4 (which is a piece of garbage IMO)

Complete agreement there.

Anyone who takes a few hours to read all the horror stories on NewEgg on various SSDs using SF controller - regardless of manufacturer - would likely question their reliability. Mind you, those were posted the folks who actually bought them...to have, in most cases their machine bluescreen and then stop "seeing" the drive in a record amount of time.

SF-based OCZs and Mushkins are at the point that they can't be given away to anyone who knows the first thing about SSDs, which is: once it dies, kiss your data goodbye. And, unlike conventional hard drives (in most cases) it will not give out a warning of any kind before it kicks the bucket.

Intels - due to name recognition and past history - are doing a bit better, but there are quite a few complaints about them as well.

I could go a lot further than this, but it would serve no useful purpose in this particular thread.

The real issue here is not whether one should spend $$ for a SATA III drive that is to be used on a SATA II chipset, but what the most reliable drive on the market is.

Most people I know would agree that Samsung 830 - if one can find an unsealed example at a reasonable price - would fit that bill.

Some people like Coke, some people like Pepsi. It's Ford Vs. Chevy, Android Vs. Apple phone, Democrat Vs. Republican, Morman Vs. Southern Baptist, and so on.

You like the reliability, but I like speed. That's cool with me, and I don't have any problem with folks that won't trust Sandforce. I just do not prefer the slower 830 drives myself. Just like ZaZ and Cigarguy say, I wouldn't trust any of them with irreplaceable data. To me, OS installations are disposable, and I typically reinstall my OS every 6 months or so. It only hurts on certain software licenses that have a finite number of activations.

The Vertex 2 and Agility 2 were very successful, so once released, the Vertex 3 and Agility 3 moved very quickly. During those first few months after they were released it seemed that the whole SSD industry was getting a bad reputation. The firmware bug was fixed in October 2011 across all brands of SF-2281 drives. Since then, they have been proven to be the best on the market. Here we are 2 years after the first SF-2281 was introduced, and nothing better has been produced since. If there were some kind of chart that compared positive reviews vs. negative reviews over time, I think you would see that nearly all of the recent reviews are positive. I read the negative reviews, and many of them are from folks that connect them up as a secondary drive and think the drive is DOA when it does not automatically pop up as an already pre-initialized and formatted drive.

I'm probably going Intel for the SSD. There's an Intel SSD in my T520 and I put a 520 series into a desktop. Limited experience, but good in both cases.

At newegg it does indeed look like the 520 series that handles SATA III is cheaper than the 320 series that is SATA II.

The Intel 520 is an excellent choice on a very fast and reliable SF-2281 drive. I couldn't recommend it more, or any brand SF-2281 drive for that matter. Intel wouldn't have put all of their eggs in the SandForce basket if it weren't a good choice.