HP EliteBook 8560w SATA compatibility

I know that HP EliteBook 8560w/8570w supports SATA III capable chipset. But this particular chipset has SATA III and SATA II capable channels.

I wonder which channel has HP used to connect the hard disk?

The thing is that I'm considering this notebook and I already have a new Samsung 830 256GB SSD that would be used to its maximum potential only on a SATA III channel.

So does HP EliteBook 85x0w connect hard disk over SATA III or SATA II channel?

Solution 1:

The manual doesn't say anything about supported SATA speeds... As per the posts in the owners lounge here

port 0 and 1 are Sata 6Gbs, port 2 (eSATA on the dockingstation) is Sata 3GBs

Another mention of SATA III here where the owner actually tests a Crucial M4 in this machine.

Solution 2:

I ran the Passmark PerformanceTest 8.0 on my Elitebook 8560w, i7-2630qm, 8GB RAM with an Intel 330 series 180 GB SSD installed as the C: drive. Received 467MB/s for Read and 289MB/s Write. The write was surging between 150-410MB/s averaging the 289MB/s. The read was steady between 455-480MB/s averaging 467MB/s. I do not know why the performance surges during writes? It gives me the impression that the write performance has potential above the average if the surging can be reduced? Answering your question: yes, the internal drive ports 0 and 1 are SATA3 as is the eSATA. The advance docking station's ports are SATA2 only, including the docking stations drive bay.