I haven't tried SATA II vs III. Just went with Paul's recommendation as it didn't seem to have any downside.
I do have his slim red SATA cable on my SSD. Yes, it made a difference, but it wasn't huge in my setup. This cable feeds a SSD that has the OS and player only. Music resides on a separate drive. The server is pretty optimized: server mobo, Xeon, fanless, linear power supply, PPA USB card, PPA picoPSU, etc. Honestly, after reading so much about it I was expecting a bigger impact on sound.
The red SATA cable is quite stiff. Take it into account for your layout/length.
I do have his slim red SATA cable on my SSD. Yes, it made a difference, but it wasn't huge in my setup. This cable feeds a SSD that has the OS and player only. Music resides on a separate drive. The server is pretty optimized: server mobo, Xeon, fanless, linear power supply, PPA USB card, PPA picoPSU, etc. Honestly, after reading so much about it I was expecting a bigger impact on sound.
The red SATA cable is quite stiff. Take it into account for your layout/length.