Sata II or Sata III

[JoeAdamsIV]

I am looking at two HDDs
Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB Sata III 6GB/s 64MB Cache at $65
or
Western Digital Caviar Green 1.5TB Sata II 3GB/s 64MB Cache at $65

Will I experience much of an increase in the Sata III drive?
Which would you choose?

 

[icy dock]

Hey Joe,

I'm guessing you already know this, your motherboard has to support SATA III as well to get the speeds that its rated at. Yes, SATA 3Gb/s is SATA II and SATA 6Gb/s is SATA III.

You may want to check how fast the 640GB Sata III 6GB/s 64MB is rated to be. If the drive doesn't show performance (read/write) above 3Gb/s or roughly 300Mb/s then you may want to reconsider getting the SATA III version. Another factor to consider is drive space, 640GB versus 1.5TB. These two factors you may want to consider when choosing which one to go with.

Hope this helps you with your question!

 

[JoeAdamsIV]

Yes, my motherboard supports Sata III. I clear most things regularly, and do a fresh OS install once a year. I doubt I will use more than 200GB. I normally have about 5GB of music, 2GB of videos, 1GB of images, 60GB of games, and 10GB of applications. I also have an External HDD.

The only read/write rates that are listed are the externals.
Sata III is 768MBps
Sata II is 300MBps

Sata III is 7200RPM
Sata II doesn't say

One thing nice about the Caviar Green, is that it is advanced format (4kb sectors).
And I am not sure if the Caviar Black has that.

 

[sminlal]

The SATA transfer rate is largely irrelevant because the platters don't spin fast enough to exceed SATA I (1.5Gbit/sec), let alone SATA II (3Gbit/sec). So you're not going to see any particular difference in performance just because of which SATA protocol you choose.

There may be an intrinsic difference in the drives themselves, though. One of those drives may have a faster transfer rate because it spins faster or because it packs more data onto a platter. Get the model numbers of the drives (there's more than one version of these drives, even for the same size) and look up the specs on the Western Digital web site to see which one has the fastest maximum transfer rate and access time.

If the transfer rate and access times are similar, choose the larger drive since it will be able to pack the same amount of data into fewer cylinders and that will tend to reduce seek time.

 

[icy dock]

Hey Joe,

Those are some good points you mentioned about the advance format, which is important too. I apologize if I was not clear; WD is probably not going to have performance charts on their website, they will only list what SATA III is rated at, which is not a good way to measure the actual performance.

Please see the below for examples of some performance charts:

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2009-3.5-desktop-hard-drive-charts/h2benchw-3.12-Avg-Read-Throughput,Marque_fbrandx46,1010.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2009-3.5-desktop-hard-drive-charts/h2benchw-3.12-Avg-Write-Throughput,Marque_fbrandx46,1013.html

Although it does not have the what SATA version it has, it's clear that it does not even reach SATA II speeds for even the highest end models. Of course the chart is old and are kind of unofficial tests (the speeds vary with different PC setups), so take this with a grain of salt. With regards to which HDD to purchase, it seems like that the SATA III version is not likely to reach SATA III speed.

*EDIT*
basically, sminlal beat me to the point

Hope this helps make it clear about the two different versions!

 

[JoeAdamsIV]

Western Digital WD15EARS Caviar Green 1.5TB SATA 64MB Cache 3.5IN Hard Drive
Model: WD15EARS
Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB SATA3 6GB/S 7200RPM 64MB Cache 3.5IN Dual Proc Hard Drive
Model: WD6402AAEX

 

[Zenthar]

The green is probably a 5400RPM drive and thus slower for random access speed which is most of what a PC does at boot time and when loading software. For that reason, a green drive might not be the best for OS/applications. However, as already pointed-out, the SATA III won't make a difference for regular HDD. It all depends what you want to use the drive for.

 

[JoeAdamsIV]

I've decided, I will go with the Caviar black, as it is 7200 RPM, I will be using this as my main boot drive.

 

[Zenthar]

If you don't need 650GB and want to save a bit, the Samsung F3 500GB is also a very good drive and costs 50$.

 

[JoeAdamsIV]

Best answer selected by JoeAdamsIV.