HDD speeds . . What matters?

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Guywiththegun

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Oct 4, 2007
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I got a SATA II Intel 80gb SSD and the speed is amazing. It was a deal, so I stuck with the SATA II even though my MB supports SATA III.

Now I'm looking for a second 1tb-2tb drive. I'd like it to be SATA III, so I can at least use up a SATA III port on my motherboard. So, what's the best drive to get for noticable speed differences? I was looking at 7200rpm, 64mb cache . . but does it really matter? I also don't want it to sound like a train-wreck whenever I'm accessing it.

I was 90% leaning towards this: http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Western-Dig...647?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item588ce26a57

But some reviews on Newegg complain of horrible noise when its active.
 
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dma0991

Platinum Member
Mar 17, 2011
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A HDD is not even fast enough to saturate the bandwidth of SATA III. Get any normal SATA II HDD will be sufficient.
 
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imaheadcase

Diamond Member
May 9, 2005
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Correct. IDE hardrives are just as fast technically as SATA drives when it comes to platter drives.

The same is kinda true for SSD drives, you won't notice a difference in speed for the user going from sata 2 to sata 3.
 
razel

razel

Platinum Member
May 14, 2002
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Yes. The fastest HDDs in the 1TB-2TB range top out around ~150MB reading off the disk. SATA II's limit is 300MB. They're not even halfway there. There are specific benchmarks that test the HDD cache which can be close to SATA II limits, but reading from the cache constantly isn't anywhere near a real life scenario.
 
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beginner99

Diamond Member
Jun 2, 2009
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Note that SATA II and III are compatible meaning you can connect a SATA II drive to a SATA III connector on you MB. Of course you only get SATA II speed and features.
 
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dorion

Senior member
Jun 12, 2006
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Guywiththegun said:
I got a SATA II Intel 80gb SSD and the speed is amazing. It was a deal, so I stuck with the SATA II even though my MB supports SATA III.

Now I'm looking for a second 1tb-2tb drive. I'd like it to be SATA III, so I can at least use up a SATA III port on my motherboard. So, what's the best drive to get for noticable speed differences? I was looking at 7200rpm, 64mb cache . . but does it really matter? I also don't want it to sound like a train-wreck whenever I'm accessing it.

I was 90% leaning towards this: http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Western-Dig...647?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item588ce26a57

But some reviews on Newegg complain of horrible noise when its active.
Click to expand...

You want a hard drive with high density platters. A hard drive with 2 platters at 1 TB is going to be faster than one with 4 platters. A higher density drive can even beat a drive with a faster rotational speed. When the first 5400RPM 2TBs came out they were beating the 7200 1TBs. Finding out which drives have higher density platters than the competition requires checking reviews and seeing which drives they outperform.

Next you want to decide on the RPMs, the lower RPM drives will be quieter, but the higher RPM drives will display increased performance.

Then Warranty.

Then Cache.

And even if you buy a SATAII drive you can still plug it into your SATAIII port.
 
Bill Brasky

Bill Brasky

Diamond Member
May 18, 2006
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Guywiththegun said:
I got a SATA II Intel 80gb SSD and the speed is amazing. It was a deal, so I stuck with the SATA II even though my MB supports SATA III.

Now I'm looking for a second 1tb-2tb drive. I'd like it to be SATA III, so I can at least use up a SATA III port on my motherboard. So, what's the best drive to get for noticable speed differences? I was looking at 7200rpm, 64mb cache . . but does it really matter? I also don't want it to sound like a train-wreck whenever I'm accessing it.

I was 90% leaning towards this: http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Western-Dig...647?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item588ce26a57

But some reviews on Newegg complain of horrible noise when its active.
Click to expand...

I have 2 WD Black 1TB drivers and they are a little noisy. Calling it "horrible noise" is an exaggeration in my opinion.
 
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Guywiththegun

Member
Oct 4, 2007
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Wow. Thanks for all the info.

Shockingly, I'm not seeing much price difference between SATA II and III. The SATA II versions of the Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB is the same exact price, with less cache.

Platters is something I'm concerned about. Basically the less platters, the better, is basically the rule . . overriding RPM speed? I wish Newegg had that as a drop-down option.

Bill Braksy said:
I have 2 WD Black 1TB drivers and they are a little noisy. Calling it "horrible noise" is an exaggeration in my opinion.
Click to expand...

Hmm. So even inside the case, its noisy? I don't mind a low level of noise, but I'm getting flashes of my dying 250gb External Hard-drive . . Its louder than my entire PC.
 
Last edited:
Bill Brasky

Bill Brasky

Diamond Member
May 18, 2006
4,324
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Guywiththegun said:
Wow. Thanks for all the info.

Shockingly, I'm not seeing much price difference between SATA II and III. The SATA II versions of the Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB is the same exact price, with less cache.

Platters is something I'm concerned about. Basically the less platters, the better, is basically the rule . . overriding RPM speed? I wish Newegg had that as a drop-down option.



Hmm. So even inside the case, its noisy? I don't mind a low level of noise, but I'm getting flashes of my dying 250gb External Hard-drive . . Its louder than my entire PC.
Click to expand...

LOL. No, they are not that loud at all. I should say I'm a little nutty about computer noise, and at idle, my rig is pretty darn quiet. I've spent more than average time and money on getting a quiet case, quiet fans, fan controllers, and tweaking lower power settings.

During heavy I/O, WD Blacks are not inaudible, and I can hear the heads searching. In normal usage, I can't hear them. Since I have 4 drives in my computer I spin down the idle drives, which helps with motor noise and vibration. In an average enthusiast computer, the seeking noise would probably be just barely audible.

Since you have a SSD and are just looking for a storage drive, I would recommend getting a low power green drive. Performance wouldn't be my main concern if I was in your position.
 
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Guywiththegun

Member
Oct 4, 2007
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It will be mostly storage, but I'll still be running emulators and programs off of there (the ones that aren't a big priority).

There's only so much I can fit on the 80gb SSD.
 
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supremor

Senior member
Dec 2, 2010
266
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Just a head's up in case you're looking to buy WD black's, the newer SATAIII have 2 platters in addition to the extra cache whereas the older SATAII models have 3 platters. As far as noise goes that's quite subjective but I own several blacks and I don't mind them at all.
 
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Guywiththegun

Member
Oct 4, 2007
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I may go with the WD black afterall. The $55 1tb looks very appealing but it has the reviews complaining about noise. Plus I have a $50 Ebay gift-card I've been trying to get rid of and its $89 shipped at the Buy.com ebay store.

It seems there's always a catch. If you go fast, its louder. If you go quiet, its slower. If its fast and quiet, it fails within a week. If its cheap, choose one or two of the above.
 
superccs

superccs

Senior member
Dec 29, 2004
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A modern HDD should have at least 30-80 horsepower... Those platters need to spin and thats going to take a lot of torque. Most these drives are spinning faster than most american car engines 5400, 7200, some as high as 10,000 RPM. To get that data to fly off those platters your going to need a lot of horsepower.
 
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