Is SATA II sufficient for HDD's?

[80251]

Would a SATA III external eSATA or USB 3.0 enclosure make any noticeable difference in performance over a SATA II external eSATA or USB 2.0 enclosure for HDD's?

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Yup. USB 2.0 transfer rate only goes to between 25-35mb/s. USB 3.0 would see around 90-135mb/s but its all dependant on the drive you use. Mechanical HDDs can only go so fast.

You would still get a decent transfer rate if you used a Sata II hard drive on a USB 3.0 dock. Even Sata III hard drives only transfer at a max rate of 150-180mb/s -- and some will do 190-200mb/s if youre super lucky and throw money on a WD Black drive but either way, thats a big ask for a mechanical hard drive.

SSDs will be a lot lot faster over USB 3.0

 

[Hachi_Roku256563]

Most hds go above 50mb/s (depending on the drive) so it will def be noticeable some of the best can get to 150/mb

 

[elghinnarisa]

I feel like both of you might want to update your mechanical harddrive performance listings. Modern spinners can go quite a bit faster than what you think. My two recent purchases had no issues sitting at 230MB/s for a couple of hours before they started making their way inwards on the platters.

SATA II is however more than enough to saturate a mechanical drive, USB 2.0 however would without a doubt be a bottleneck for it.
How much difference it would make in reality however, depends on how you use your external storage. If you are constantly moving large files back and forth then it could very well make a difference.

 

[Hachi_Roku256563]

I feel like both of you might want to update your mechanical harddrive performance listings. Modern spinners can go quite a bit faster than what you think. My two recent purchases had no issues sitting at 230MB/s for a couple of hours before they started making their way inwards on the platters.

SATA II is however more than enough to saturate a mechanical drive, USB 2.0 however would without a doubt be a bottleneck for it.
How much difference it would make in reality however, depends on how you use your external storage. If you are constantly moving large files back and forth then it could very well make a difference.

idk what that drive is but my wd purple 4tb manages 150mb and its the fastest hdd in my system

 

[elghinnarisa]

idk what that drive is but my wd purple 4tb manages 150mb and its the fastest hdd in my system

Just a pair of cheapest of the day Seagate Ironwolf 4TB's.

 

[Rhein7]

I think others already said it but I have 2 USB enclosures right in front of me right now.
A generic chinese brand USB 2.0 enclosure and Orico USB 3.0 with 2 TB WD Green in it. Just for the lulz I tried the WD Green in USB 2.0 enclosure and it only manages 20-25 MB/s compared to 70-90 MB/s on Orico.

Even if it's just to save some money, better go with USB 3.0 tbh.

 

[Solid State Soul ( SSS )]

Yes, only SSDs utilize past sata2 speeds

 

[Jetster]

Yes, SATA III is faster than UDB 3.0, SATA II and USB 2.0

 

[Mussels]

I'll back others here, SATA II is enough for mechanical drives, but USB 2.0 is not

Any USB 3.0 enclosure will do the trick

 

[FreedomEclipse]

I feel like both of you might want to update your mechanical harddrive performance listings. Modern spinners can go quite a bit faster than what you think. My two recent purchases had no issues sitting at 230MB/s for a couple of hours before they started making their way inwards on the platters.

No i dont. Because no mechanical hard drive is ever going to hit 230mb/s on USB 3.0 (which is what the OP is asking about)

 

[Mussels]

No i dont. Because no mechanical hard drive is ever going to hit 230mb/s on USB 3.0

Uhhh... why not? I've got an Msata SSD here on USB3 that does 500MB/s with no issues

why cant a modern mech drive achieve that on the same USB controller?

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Uhhh... why not? I've got an Msata SSD here on USB3 that does 500MB/s with no issues

why cant a modern mech drive achieve that on the same USB controller?

Because its not mechanical. and mechanical drives can only go so fast??? Ive never seen one hit those speeds in an external dock or enclosure. (Prove me wrong??)

 

[Mussels]

Because its not mechanical. and mechanical drives can only go so fast??? Ive never seen one hit those speeds in an external dock or enclosure.

But... they can.
USB 3.0 can do it
the mech drives can do it

Combined... they can still do it.

Modern mech drives can break 200MB/s

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Well, Like i said. Ive never seen a mechanical drive break 200mb/s in an external enclosure. (so agree to disagree on my part)

 

[Jetster]

Well, Like i said. Ive never seen a mechanical drive break 200mb/s in an external enclosure. (so agree to disagree on my part)

I hadn't ether until recently, but not by much. It was a WD Elements 14 Tb USb 3.0

 

[MIRTAZAPINE]

Well, Like i said. Ive never seen a mechanical drive break 200mb/s in an external enclosure. (so agree to disagree on my part)

Actually mechanical HDD do hit pass 200MB/s.

Here is the fastest mechanical drive I have breaking 277MB/s on my orico usb 3.0 dock, yeah its an outlier it an enterprise ultrastar hc550 18TB at 7200rpm. HDD infact passed 200MB/s even on usb 3.0 enlclosure. My WD elements top out at around 210MB/s for its 5400rpm drive.

Edit : With a decent well implemented UASP usb 3.0 encloursure you get less speed penalty over usb 3.0 for hdd transfer. I still agree that most hdd is more than sufficient even on a non uasp usb 3.0 enclosure is sufficient.

 

[80251]

That enterprise ultrastar hc550 18TB is impressive for a spinner. Is it Hitachi? How much did it cost? I seem to remember back when I worked in a datacenter there were 10,000 and 15,000 RPM HDD's, were those capable of that kind of performance?

 

[QuietBob]

I seem to remember back when I worked in a datacenter there were 10,000 and 15,000 RPM HDD's, were those capable of that kind of performance?

Very unlikely. This is the last WD Velociraptor from 2012, probably the fastest 10,000 rpm consumer drive there was:

 

[Mussels]

the high RPM drives had faster response times, not higher throughput

 

[elghinnarisa]

No i dont. Because no mechanical hard drive is ever going to hit 230mb/s on USB 3.0 (which is what the OP is asking about)

Yes, you do. I ran both my drives through a surface test before using them in my system, which I did using a usb 3.0 dock which holds two drives, both drives were going quite a bit past 200MB/s each in that dock until they reached the inner parts of the platters and they slowly dropped down to sub 150MB/s.

 

[evernessince]

Actually mechanical HDD do hit pass 200MB/s.

Here is the fastest mechanical drive I have breaking 277MB/s on my orico usb 3.0 dock, yeah its an outlier it an enterprise ultrastar hc550 18TB at 7200rpm. HDD infact passed 200MB/s even on usb 3.0 enlclosure. My WD elements top out at around 210MB/s for its 5400rpm drive.

Edit : With a decent well implemented UASP usb 3.0 encloursure you get less speed penalty over usb 3.0 for hdd transfer. I still agree that most hdd is more than sufficient even on a non uasp usb 3.0 enclosure is sufficient.

View attachment 199838

View attachment 199839

Yep. I have some 16TB WD Golds that do 255MB/s

 

[MIRTAZAPINE]

That enterprise ultrastar hc550 18TB is impressive for a spinner. Is it Hitachi? How much did it cost? I seem to remember back when I worked in a datacenter there were 10,000 and 15,000 RPM HDD's, were those capable of that kind of performance?

Yes it a Hitachi HGST drive but its owned under WD now. I was lucky to get this drive for around $440usd it usually cost way more. This is before its depleted by HDD crypto mining. This is my 2nd enterprise hdd after a Toshiba MG07 14TB which also runs about the same speed but much louder.

I don't own a high speed rpm hdd, I guess Quietbob have answered you that with the velociraptor. HDD speed grow slowly over the years due to density increases but the speed have remain static at around 280MB/s at the most for the past 4 years. Manufacturer could no longer increase hdd density with perpendicular recording technology which how speed and space have been increasing since 2005 when the tech came out. It was a rather simple change from the prior Longitudinal recording. There tech to increase density like shingle recording which is what wd and seagate did to lower space hdd to decrease cost. Shingle recording unfortunately make hdd slower and its terrible for random writes especially.

 

[Superzuber]

There are USB 3.1 Gen 2, 10Gb/s enclosures available, doing constant 520MB/s in software RAID0 with two WD Ultrastar 14TB - enclosure is for 2x 3,5" drives

edit: it's more like dock than enclosure - EVOLVEO DION 2, 10Gb/s

 

[Mussels]

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