HDDs - What have I missed?

ttaskmaster · 6 Jan 2014 at 13:59

Heya,

I'm looking for a larger capacity HDD than my 320GB one.
It will hold all my Steam games and a few downloaded files, installers, etc.
I expect 1TB will be enough... for now.

I'm a fan of Seagate drives, so was considering this: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-257-SE&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=1279

But then I see this one is the "Fastest 1TB Drive on the Market!": http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-024-TS&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=1279

Why is it faster?
And why are these so cheap compared to others at more that twice the price but still with the same RPM, Cache, GB/s, etc?
Is SATA II really all that? My current board only has 3GB/s SATA ports anyway, so I probably won't be able to use it... ?

Wondering if I'd be better off just getting a 2 or 3TB HDD for £90?

Solaris · 6 Jan 2014 at 14:03

When it comes to mechanical hard disks... "Faster" is a very small margin...
3GB/s is pointless when a drive can't read/write anywhere near that...

ttaskmaster · 6 Jan 2014 at 17:48

So... even though the other drives have 6GB/s SATA II, they can't even manage 3GB/s on my SATA I ports and I'll be fine with the lower priced ones?

Frijz · 6 Jan 2014 at 20:40

That is correct sir, the drive can't operate at the maximum speed of the port

Seagate drive will be reliable for sure

ttaskmaster · 6 Jan 2014 at 23:57

OK, that's my shopping decision made... But I'm still wondering why the expensive 6GB/s drive can't actually perform at 6GB/s.... or even 3!!

Confused · 7 Jan 2014 at 09:56

ttaskmaster said:
OK, that's my shopping decision made... But I'm still wondering why the expensive 6GB/s drive can't actually perform at 6GB/s.... or even 3!!

It's due to how a mechanical hard drive actually works - it just can't physically read the data off the drive quickly enough - a spinning platter and heads that move (think of a smaller, magnetic record player)

Some very high density drives are approaching ~170MB/sec transfer rates, which will saturate a SATA I connection, and is just over half the speed of a SATA II connection, and just over a quarter of the speed of a SATA III connection.

To get the higher transfer rates, you'll be needing a solid state drive (SSD)

ttaskmaster · 7 Jan 2014 at 14:20

So why the heck do they claim it's a 6GB/s drive if it can't even manage 3?
Meh...

I'll be getting a Samsung EVO SSD for the boot drive, but I'm guessing that'll eat my SATA I headers for breakfast!
The HDD is purely for high volume data storage. My current drives are fast enough (same speed actually), just not BIG enough!