Hello. Got a question and I do not know the answer nor can I find it.
The mainboard on my setup is a BIOSTAR TA790GX128M. I currently have 4GB DDR PC6400 memory (2 sets of 2X1GB Matched Sets) that I am upgrading to 8GB of DDR PC6400 memory (2 sets of 2X2GB Matched Sets) as I am getting ready to install Win 7 Pro 64 bit and I wanted the extra memory. This board has 6 SATA II slots limited to 3Gb/s. As I have an external drive that I use for storage (1TB and it is almost full with my .wav music files from my digitized LP's), I got a Speed Dragon PCI Express Combo Card so that I can use eSATA function on the drive instead of USB to connect to the computer (eSATA being faster than USB V2.0). The card says the PCIe is limited to 2.5Gb/s but I have read where the SATA II ports, even though listed as 3Gb/s, operate at a much lesser speed.
I know I need to upgrade my mainboard/cpu/memory to current standards, but I can't do that right now. It will be about a year before I can upgrade the MB/CPU/Mem.
This controller card is in the PCIe slot (one of 2 - PCI Express Gen 2 X 1) and not only does it have the eSATA port but there is also a SATA II port on it as well.
I am getting a SSD that is SATA III (Samsung EVO) for the new OS and am wondering if I should hook it up to the SATA II port on the PCIe controller card to use the PCIe slot instead of hooking the SSD to one of the 6 SATA II ports on the mainboard. Four of the 6 ports are already in use (2TB HDD, 2TB HHD, 350GB HHD, and my Pioneer BD-R BDXL Blu Ray Read/Write). I know that I will never be able to take full advantage of the EVO unless I upgrade, but that will come in time.
So the question is will I get better performance putting the EVO SSD on the controller card or one of the mainboard SATA II ports? Either way, I realize that I will be limited to SATA II speeds but what would be the best option to use?
I guess that I can try both ways to see what will give me the fastest R/W speeds but if I do this, what is a good freeware program that I can use to measure the capabilities of the SATA II ports vs the SATA II port on the PCIe card?
Motherboard: BIOSTAR TA790GX 128M Rev 5.3
CPU: AMD Phenom II X2 545 Processor ~ 3.0Ghz
Memory: 4 X 1GB Corsair XMS 2 (will be upgraded to 8GB GSK F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ 2X2X2GB)
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200/64 SATA 6.0 SATA slot 1
Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200/64 SATA 6.0 SATA slot 2
Seagate Barracuda 300GB 7200/32 SATA 3.0 SATA slot 3
SAMSUNG MZ-7TE250BW 840 EVO 250GB SATA 6.0 slot ?????
FDD (can you believe it????)
Graphics: NVIDIA (Foxconn) GeForce 7950 GT
CD/ROM: Pioneer BD-R Blu Ray SATA slot 5
Light Scribe DVD IDE Primary
Other: E-SATA to SATA controller card for an external Hitachi FD 1TB HDD
M Audio Audiophile 24/96 Rev A2 (currently removed for installation of Win 7)
BIOS: 78DEAB12BST
The mainboard on my setup is a BIOSTAR TA790GX128M. I currently have 4GB DDR PC6400 memory (2 sets of 2X1GB Matched Sets) that I am upgrading to 8GB of DDR PC6400 memory (2 sets of 2X2GB Matched Sets) as I am getting ready to install Win 7 Pro 64 bit and I wanted the extra memory. This board has 6 SATA II slots limited to 3Gb/s. As I have an external drive that I use for storage (1TB and it is almost full with my .wav music files from my digitized LP's), I got a Speed Dragon PCI Express Combo Card so that I can use eSATA function on the drive instead of USB to connect to the computer (eSATA being faster than USB V2.0). The card says the PCIe is limited to 2.5Gb/s but I have read where the SATA II ports, even though listed as 3Gb/s, operate at a much lesser speed.
I know I need to upgrade my mainboard/cpu/memory to current standards, but I can't do that right now. It will be about a year before I can upgrade the MB/CPU/Mem.
This controller card is in the PCIe slot (one of 2 - PCI Express Gen 2 X 1) and not only does it have the eSATA port but there is also a SATA II port on it as well.
I am getting a SSD that is SATA III (Samsung EVO) for the new OS and am wondering if I should hook it up to the SATA II port on the PCIe controller card to use the PCIe slot instead of hooking the SSD to one of the 6 SATA II ports on the mainboard. Four of the 6 ports are already in use (2TB HDD, 2TB HHD, 350GB HHD, and my Pioneer BD-R BDXL Blu Ray Read/Write). I know that I will never be able to take full advantage of the EVO unless I upgrade, but that will come in time.
So the question is will I get better performance putting the EVO SSD on the controller card or one of the mainboard SATA II ports? Either way, I realize that I will be limited to SATA II speeds but what would be the best option to use?
I guess that I can try both ways to see what will give me the fastest R/W speeds but if I do this, what is a good freeware program that I can use to measure the capabilities of the SATA II ports vs the SATA II port on the PCIe card?
Motherboard: BIOSTAR TA790GX 128M Rev 5.3
CPU: AMD Phenom II X2 545 Processor ~ 3.0Ghz
Memory: 4 X 1GB Corsair XMS 2 (will be upgraded to 8GB GSK F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ 2X2X2GB)
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200/64 SATA 6.0 SATA slot 1
Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200/64 SATA 6.0 SATA slot 2
Seagate Barracuda 300GB 7200/32 SATA 3.0 SATA slot 3
SAMSUNG MZ-7TE250BW 840 EVO 250GB SATA 6.0 slot ?????
FDD (can you believe it????)
Graphics: NVIDIA (Foxconn) GeForce 7950 GT
CD/ROM: Pioneer BD-R Blu Ray SATA slot 5
Light Scribe DVD IDE Primary
Other: E-SATA to SATA controller card for an external Hitachi FD 1TB HDD
M Audio Audiophile 24/96 Rev A2 (currently removed for installation of Win 7)
BIOS: 78DEAB12BST