If you want a good fast drive, this 1TB baby isn't a Black series but still spins at 7200 and is 6 Gb/sec format! Time to upgrade those SATA cards! More and more 6Gb/sec drives are coming out.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136767

 

 

Just because the drive is on the SATA III (6Gbps) standard doesn't mean it actually transfers data at that rate. In fact I think you'd be hard pressed to find a platter-based hard drive that saturates SATA I.

Correct, any single platter based drive will be hard pressed to saturate SATA I.

 

The only real advantage you will see is if you are doing a RAID5 or any striped RAID.

So the only reason WD made this drive 6gb/sec is for raid use? Bummer! I guess I just want fiber speeds!

 

 

So the only reason WD made this drive 6gb/sec is for raid use? Bummer! I guess I just want fiber speeds!

That drive cannot sustain 6gb/s, the sata link can.  It is only the communications to/from the drive that is faster not the rotational speed of the disk. The basic physics do not chage, a single drive will still top out at just over 100 MB/s. The number of bits per cylinder and rotational speed will dictate the overall throughput.

So the only reason WD made this drive 6gb/sec is for raid use? Bummer! I guess I just want fiber speeds!

That drive cannot sustain 6gb/s, the sata link can.  It is only the communications to/from the drive that is faster not the rotational speed of the disk. The basic physics do not chage, a single drive will still top out at just over 100 MB/s. The number of bits per cylinder and rotational speed will dictate the overall throughput.

 

Kind of like attaching a fire hose to your home's hose bib.  The firehose can carry a lot more water than the hose bib is able to supply.

 

There are three ways I can think of where this extra speed could help ...

 

1.  If the drive has cached some data, it can deliver it in a hurry.  But it such a little bit (32M/64M), it is insignificant.

 

2.  If you are using some type of port multiplier, where multiple drives are communicating through a single SATA port.  Would take quite a few to saturate the bus, but could come in handy.

 

3.  New drive technology could result in much faster drives.  SSD shows promise.  Current drives are no where near fast enough to saturate the current bus, but we'll have to wait and see what happens in the future.