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SATA 3 SSD Question

Eddy Munn

Eddy Munn

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 27, 2008
380
791
Hello, I have a unibody MacBook Pro model A1286 from 2008.
I would like to put a SATA 3 SSD in, but understand that the connectors to the Hard-drive slot are only capable of 3 gb/s speeds, bottlenecking the potential of the SSD I'm looking at.

Now I know go certain Hard-drive enclosures that replace the optical drive, would this be able to reach the 6 gb/s speeds that I want?​
 
No, as the 2008 Unibody MBP also only has S-ATA 3.0Gbps (SATA II), as there is no need for a faster interface for optical media, even S-ATA 1.5Gbps (SATA I) would more than suffice for that.
 
simsaladimbamba said:
No, as the 2008 Unibody MBP also only has S-ATA 3.0Gbps (SATA II), as there is no need for a faster interface for optical media, even S-ATA 1.5Gbps (SATA I) would more than suffice for that.
Click to expand...
I meant replacing the Optical drive with a Hard-drive enclosure.
 
SATA II 3.0 Gbps is has a maximum theoretical bandwidth of 375MB/s. Overhead drive that down to around 300MBps. Sandforce 1200 series are capable of 285MB/s pretty much max out SATA II. Sandforce 2200 series are capable of 550MB/s read speed on SATA III 6.0 Gbps. There are tons of manufacturers of these drives. OCZ, OWC, Kingston, and Patriot to name a few.

Regardless, in the real world I barely see the difference between my 15" MBP with 480GB SATA III 6.0Gbps and my 27" iMac with 240GB SATA II 3.0 Gbps. The main difference is on the iMac I'm hitting the HDD for media storage so iPhoto, iTunes, and even Safari (cache) are slower than the MBP. With all data on the SSD, the MBP is near instant (Lion animations take as long to complete as the application takes to load all data. Even my backup Apple SSD made a huge difference over a 7,200 RPM HDD.
 
Last edited:
shortcut3d said:
SATA II 3.0 Gbps is has a maximum theoretical bandwidth of 375MB/s. Overhead drive that down to around 300MBps. Sandforce 1200 series are capable of 285MB/s pretty much max out SATA II. Sandforce 2200 series are capable of 550MB/s read speed on SATA III 6.0 Gbps. There are tons of manufacturers of these drives. OCZ, OWC, Kingston, and Patriot to name a few.
Click to expand...

Yes I know they exist, but relatively speaking they are few in comparison to those that cannot exceed SATA II.

All in all, OP shouldn't feel bad for not being able to have SATA III is all I'm saying.
 
I have the same MB and I'm interested in purchasing an SSD drive also. I understand that the uMB only have SATA-II. My question is: can I use a SATA-III disk in a SATA-II interface?
I'm asking these because I don't see a big difference in price, and If I purchase a SATA-III I can use it in future in a SATA-III MB (when I decide to upgrade MB).

If the answer to the first quest is Yes, can you give me opinions on compatibility between the crucial m4 and the uMB (late 2008).

Thanks,
Cláudio Caseiro
 
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