Hello everyone,

The SSD (Solid State Drive) is the greatest invention since “sliced bread”. Installing an SSD can cut boot times down to below ten seconds and open programs so fast that your head will swim! The greatest single speed upgrade for your computer is without doubt the installation of a Solid State Drive.

Yet many people install an SSD, and see little or no speed increase. What’s up?

Take a look at this beautiful Solid State Drive: A super fast SSD indeed, but will your computer  be able to utilize this speed? If your computer motherboard does not have the adequate bus speed, then you will never see the true benefits of your SSD.

It all depends upon what version of SATA ports are on your motherboard. If your motherboard does not have high speed SATA connections (SATA3 at 6Gb/s), then your I/O bus will bog down well before you can experience the speed of the SSD.

If you connect a 6Gb/s capable SSD to a SATA2 port then you will only get 3Gb/s. If you connect a 6Gb/s SSD to a SATA1 port, then your throughput will only be 1.5Gb/s.

If you have an older computer/motherboard and you want to enjoy the incredible speed of an SSD drive, you may be able to add a SATA 3 card. Even better would be to get a PCIe card and connect the SSD to the PCIe bus instead of the SATA bus. When installing an expansion card, please make sure that your motherboard is compatible.

Professor Randy says: An SSD will change your computing life! Just make sure that your motherboard has the correct ports in order to take full advantage of the drive.