Fastest Sata 6gb/s mechanical drive?

[benikens]

Title says it all, I wanna know what mechanical drives are the fastest as I can't really afford to have all my stuff on SSD's

 

[Plumble]

Hi

For loading Windows, Something like the WD velociraptors. More expensive than most desktop HDDs but cheaper than SSD.
For just storing data, something like the WD Caviar Black range, Samsung Spinpoint F3 or Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 are all quite good and reasonably priced.

 

[WyomingKnott]

There are currently no mechanical hard drives that can benefit from the use of an SATA III controller port, even if the hard drive has an SATA III interface. They simply don't pump data quickly enough.

I'm using a velociraptor myself, as Plumble suggests. In theory, a highly cached drive like the Seagate Momentus might give you an advantage and, rarely, benefit from the SATA III interface.

(I'm assuming from the 6gb/s in the thread title that you are inquiring about SATA III.)

 

[benikens]

Yeah i meant SATA III, didn't want to be confused with SATA II 3gb/s. Thanks for the suggestions, looking at the prices of a velociraptor i might aswell just get a 7200rpm drive and save for an ssd instead.

 

[LW_Black4]

Hi

For loading Windows, Something like the WD velociraptors. More expensive than most desktop HDDs but cheaper than SSD.
For just storing data, something like the WD Caviar Black range, Samsung Spinpoint F3 or Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 are all quite good and reasonably priced.

This is an excellent answer, concise and specific. I'm looking into the WD Velociraptors myself as a boot drive, and supplement it with a tiny SSD for Intel Smart Response Technology, which is essentially a fast disk-caching facility.

 

[benikens]

Had forgotten this thread it was so long ago, in the end I went with a 2tb WD black for storage and a 120gb ocz agility 3 for boot drive. Velociraptors just seem overpriced compared to SSD's these days considering the SSD's are just ridiculously faster and a 256gb drive can be had for $200.

 

[benikens]

Best answer selected by benikens.