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slieu92

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 28, 2008
221
0
California
i'm about to order a mbp and was wondering about the base hdd, will it make use of the new SATA III port speed? and the optical drive, is it SATA III as well?
 
My 2011 13" base MBP shows that both bays are SATA III.

To add, the SATA III speeds are faster than a HDD can read/write, so only a SSD would be able to make full use out of the SATA III speeds.
 
The HDD may be, but its not fast enough to make a difference. The optical drive probably only has a sata 1 interface, however, again it wouldn't really matter.
 
The HDD may be, but its not fast enough to make a difference. The optical drive probably only has a sata 1 interface, however, again it wouldn't really matter.

^This. The average stock hard drive puts out around 60MB/s, which is well below the SATAII threshold. You should have 2 SATAIII ports though.
 
Not sure what you are asking. The 13 and 15 models have SATA III speed in the Hard drive bay...only some have SATA III in the disk drive (not
sure which production period).

The base HDD will not feel any faster because the hard disk speed is based on size, density, and RPM.

But if you are asking whether you could use a SATA III/6 gbps drive in the base mbp 13, then the answer is yes.

Hope this helps!
 
thanks guys. i was hoping on putting two hdds in or one hdd and one ssd. that was why i was wondering about the optical bay as well.
 
Main drive/SSD in the hard drive bay @ SATA 6Gbps speed and secondary hdd in the optical bay at SATA 3Gbps speed.

Now SATA 6Gbps has issues in the optical bay AND in 17" MBPs
 
Main drive/SSD in the hard drive bay @ SATA 6Gbps speed and secondary hdd in the optical bay at SATA 3Gbps speed.

Now SATA 6Gbps has issues in the optical bay AND in 17" MBPs

I have SATA III in both bays - 2011 MBP 13".

Main drive-ssd:
Vendor: Intel
Product: 6 Series Chipset
Link Speed: 6 Gigabit
Negotiated Link Speed: 6 Gigabit

Secondary drive-hdd (ie, optical drive):
Vendor: Intel
Product: 6 Series Chipset
Link Speed: 6 Gigabit
Negotiated Link Speed: 3 Gigabit
 
The base HDD will not take advantage of SATA III. Most can't even max out SATA I which is 1.5 gb/s.
 
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