Fast SATA III Hdd recomendation

Blue407 · 8 Dec 2011 at 10:31

Hi guys

I'm looking for a fast SATA III HDD for a 2nd drive in a PC, primary HDD will be a fast SSD.

Need around 500gb minimum but as this PC is goign to be for testing with some virtual machines I want it to be as quick as possible.

Any recomendations?

Surveyor · 8 Dec 2011 at 11:35

You'll find that SATA 2 or SATA 3 on a HDD makes no difference you'd notice due to the limitations of the drive itself.

If you had the same drive with a SATA 2 connection and a SATA 3 connection you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

About as fast as you'll find would be something like this:

Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM £119.99

Of course HDD prices are currently very high compared to what we're used to and a few weeks ago you could have bought that drive for around a third of the price.

Blue407 · 8 Dec 2011 at 12:38

Surveyor said:
You'll find that SATA 2 or SATA 3 on a HDD makes no difference you'd notice due to the limitations of the drive itself.

If you had the same drive with a SATA 2 connection and a SATA 3 connection you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

About as fast as you'll find would be something like this:

Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM £119.99

Of course HDD prices are currently very high compared to what we're used to and a few weeks ago you could have bought that drive for around a third of the price.

Its for a Company PC so cost not the main factor.

Will be using Microsoft Virtual Server for testing so want good performance.
Would multiple hdd's be a better option?

Surveyor · 8 Dec 2011 at 13:42

Multiple HDD's in RAID 0 will offer higher read and write speeds at the increased risk of losing all the data if 1 drive failed.

If cost isn't an issue then why not just get a 512GB SSD, an OCZ RevoDrive or RevoDrive Hybrid?

Blue407 · 8 Dec 2011 at 13:48

Surveyor said:
Multiple HDD's in RAID 0 will offer higher read and write speeds at the increased risk of losing all the data if 1 drive failed.

If cost isn't an issue then why not just get a 512GB SSD, an OCZ RevoDrive or RevoDrive Hybrid?

I read some stuff talking about the hybrid drives not being good as secondary drives....

Surveyor · 8 Dec 2011 at 13:58

Blue407 said:
I read some stuff talking about the hybrid drives not being good as secondary drives....

I assume they're a halfway house between a HDD and an SSD.