3gb/6gb SATA variations - B3 Rev?

Snooble · 16 Mar 2011 at 12:43

Hey all,

Buying my B3 Rev P67 SandyBridge mobo and 2500k this weekend and got a couple of questions about it..

I have two old HDD's, they're 3gbps SATA II. Is it worth me buying a 6gb SATA drive? What sort of performance boost do you get? Improvment on fast read/writes?

Second question, what's new in the B3 revisions? Is it just to stop the 6gb ports from melting? Or is there any extra benefits?

Thank you in advance

S

rpstewart · 16 Mar 2011 at 12:50

Any performance difference between your existing HDDs and a new SATA 6Gbps one will be purely down to usual ongoing improvements in platter density. The updated interface will not, in itself, have any difference on performance.

The B3 revision boards shouldn't be any different to the B2 ones other than resolving the potential issue with the SATA 3Gbps ports.

Snooble · 16 Mar 2011 at 13:31

thank you for the response...

followup question. why are they branded as 6gbps if they dont run at the increased speed? is there a meaning to 6gb sataII compatibility that I'm not understanding?

Thank you,

S

rpstewart · 16 Mar 2011 at 14:28

The interface between the disk and the controller is capable of transferring data at up to 6Gbps however the physical disk cannot send data that quickly. This has always been the case even with SATAII/SATA 3Gbps drives, in fact there are very few mechanical HDDs which can saturate a SATAI 1.5Gbps link let alone anything faster.

Snooble · 16 Mar 2011 at 16:34

Oh, this is interesting to know.. So It is completely pointless buying Sata3 (6gbps) mech hdd's (except for benefits from new data handling)? Do SSD's make use of a 6gbps connection?

Thanks for clearing this up guys.