mSATA vs 2.5" - pros/cons?

Hi guys, I'm getting a Gigabyte P35K and it has empty bays for mSATA or 2.5". I want to add a SSD. Right now, I'm trying to find out if the slots support 6gb/s on either the mSATA or the 2.5" or both, but thats more a question for the Gigabyte forum. My question for you guys here is whether or not there are any big pros/cons for getting an mSATA instead of a 2.5"? Are mSATA higher priced for the same storage capacity? Are they slower than 2.5" in general? Any other things to consider? I guess if there's no real difference, I would get the mSATA just for the negligibly less weight.

Thank you very much for your time.

 

Assuming they both support SATA 6GB/s, then the two are basically the same performance-wise. Unless particular manufacturers have specific differences, the speed, power consumption, etc should all be identical.

That said, 2.5" versions of the same SSD are usually cheaper and are more widely available, because of greater overall demand. If the price is about the same, I too would go for the mSATA.

 

mSATA is slower when all other things are equal. This is because the channels and each channel interleaving is not as optimal as a 2.5" SSD can be (even when considering the same size/capacity models).

What is not equal though is that the firmware for mSATA SSD's is not the same as the 2.5" models. This often gives a semblance of similar performance between the two - though they do behave differently in actual use.

If you're considering an mSATA EVO right now for O/S use; I would be hesitant to use it in that capacity unless a new firmware is confirmed to fix that (huge) issue.

TRIM is not working on those models and depending on your workflow you could see performance drop to HDD levels very quickly.

See:
AnandTech | Samsung SSD 840 EVO mSATA (120GB, 250GB, 500GB & 1TB) Review


So, while manufacturers would love us to think they are equivalent; they're not.


Another example is the extremely hot running Intel 525 mSATA SSD's (extreme because it causes the drive to crash/BSOD) - they're fast, they're expensive, they're rare and they're not recommended for an enclosed space like a notebook, apparently.

See:
https://communities.intel.com/thread/38380



The fastest SSD's I have used have all been 240/256GB or larger, with as many channels and as many nand chips interleaved per channel as the design could support. mSATA SSD's do not fall into this category.

Sure; they're still fast. But they're far from the fastest (sustained, over time) I have used.

 

Thanks guys, in the end I opted for the Samsung 840 Pro 2.5" 256GB, which has gotten some great reviews and benchmarks. Found it for $176.00 factory sealed new which I think is a great price. Hope you guys agree.

 

The price looks great, it is a good modern drive but forget the benchmarks: what is your intended workflow with this drive?

If you can leave at least 30% OP on the drive it should be about the best real world performance you can get for the dollars you paid.

See:
AnandTech | SanDisk Extreme II Review (480GB, 240GB, 120GB)


In the above links; check out the graphs with the 840 Pro and see how much they improve with OP'ing.


In the following link check out what Samsung says about OP'ing.

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...g-1tb-msata-840-evo-coming-3.html#post9569064


Almost better than I can say it myself (for the last few years now).

 

I hadn't known about over provisioning until you told me, tilleroftheearth. Thanks for that. Ill be setting that up with samsung magician, but probably closer to 25-30% instead of their recommended value like you said. Ill be using the SSD for the operating system and programs, including games. Ill have a 750gb mechanical drive for movies, music, pictures, and documents. I think I should have enough room on the ssd for this configuration.

Do you know if OP space can be increased/reduced at a later date if I end up needing more or less of the space?

 

All msata on desktop boards are sata2 because they use one of sata2 connection.Two sata3 connections on Z77 and six sata3 connection on Z87 are for standard sata ports

 

I would recommend to run the Samsung software only when a firmware update on the SSD is available (then immediately disable or better yet: uninstall it). Don't run any of the SSD 'optimizations' it offers. Neither do I recommend RAPID (nor any RAM cache software) for a system that you depend on.


For the OP'ing;

If you're doing a clean install on the SSD, simply partition the SSD leaving the amount of 'unallocated' space you want. This is the best way to leave 'unallocated' capacity for the nand to do it's housekeeping in. (The 'unallocated' nand has never been touched and is therefore ready to be used).

If you're doing this after setting up Windows:

Right Click on Computer, Manage, Disk Management and select the drive you want to 'shrink'. Right click and select 'Shrink Volume' choosing the amount to shrink in MB's. Click okay and wait for it to complete.

Now, right click on the new unallocated partition you've just created and select 'New Simple Partition'. Create a new partition (doesn't matter what we call it - we'll delete it again soon) and format it. This effectively TRIM's the partition and sets the nand ready to be written to (as if we did this with a brand new drive during a clean install).

At this point: l would leave the computer and SSD sitting idle for at least half an hour (make sure your sleep timers don't put the system to sleep during this time; you want the system on so that the drive is fully TRIM'd).

After this idle time; right click on the partition you created and delete it until it shows as 'unallocated' once more.

Now, you're ready to use your SSD to it's full performance potential (sustained performance, over time).


At any time in the future; you can extend the partition if you need more room as your needs change.


Hope that helps.

 

Thanks for the good instructions. Was curious -- I've seen about a 50/25/25 split with people saying RAPID is [Amazing]/[Provides minimal increases]/[Provides no real world benefit]. Almost all of these agree that the only associated risk with it is that if you get an abrupt system shutdown or bluescreen, you lose the data that was in the RAM (which can obviously result in corrupted files associated with the data that was in the RAM). There was also mention that the computer may take slightly longer to boot, something about magician having to start up first. Lastly, this article actually showed RAPID mode decreases performance ( A closer look at RAPID DRAM caching on the Samsung 840 EVO SSD - The Tech Report - Page 1) but I don't know enough to evaluate the validity of the tests. I was wondering if these are the reasons you recommended not to use RAPID mode and uninstall magician, or if there are any additional ones.

I'm asking because performance has always been top priority for me over safety of my data, since I backup my important things onto an external hard drive about once a month. So I'm still considering RAPID, but I want to evaluate all the factors before deciding. Side-note, my current laptop that I bought in 2008 has been running RAID-0 on two 200GB 7200RPM drives since day 1, and has never failed, and I use it for hours on end almost every day, lugging the 9pound beast around and banging it into things, but maybe I've just gotten lucky here. Even more funny is the fact that its a Gateway!

 

What some fail to consider is that a backup of your data is not enough for most people; you also need a working/stable system to use it on.

If this is your only computer - don't depend on third party caching schemes. The O/S itself has enough glitches and surprises for anyone without introducing another wrench into the gears.

I may be wrong about RAPID specifically; but how RAM caching software works is it's not smart enough to cache only the unimportant things (anything not related to the O/S).

When the glitch happens with something important 'gone' - you don't have a working system anymore.

It happened to me (not with RAPID; other RAM caching software).


Performance is also my top priority - but now I concentrate on performance over time (downtime, rebuilding, troubleshooting and otherwise not being productive with a system counts against that performance over time) and, when a catastrophe happens, it usually costs more than any performance benefits you would have received over a year (so the net gain is below zero, at least the times it's happened to me).

 

actually not much these days other than price. I'd probably be so bold to say the 2.5inch drives only really bring minor advantages like better reliability (you lose a smaller fraction of the total cell count when a package dies) and slightly better performance (mostly sequential as most manufacturers have pretty much leveled the consistency disparity). The mSATA has additional advantages such as power consumption (again very minor though but some manufacturers implement features like DevSleep etc).