Mid 2011 iMac 2.5 i5 - Hard Drive Upgrade
Hopefully someone can help me with this.
I am trying to upgrade the hard drive of my parents' computer from a hdd to an ssd. The hard drive connection is a 2.5 SATA, which I would think would have a max speed of 300MB/s. There are two values listed under the System Report for the hard drive transmit speed, one is the "Link Speed" (6Gb/s=600MB/s) and the other is the "Negotiated Link Speed" (3Gb/s=300MB/s). What do these speeds mean?
If I buy a Crucial MX500 or Sumsung 860 Evo which have a max read/write speed of 600MB/s, will I get its full capability? Or do I have to do something else with the connection? Is there no way to get the max speed of these drives and should I buy a slower ssd?
Posted Mar 19, 2019, 9:39 PM UTC
11
Sounds like computer supports SATA3 but the drive connected is SATA2 (Normal for that time period for a 5400rpm 2.5” drive). So you should be good. You will get full capabilities of the drive. And either way, it’s not about maximum transfer rates, it’s mostly about IOPS