Hard Drive data rates

[Tim]

On Sat, 2007-09-29 at 06:57 -0600, Karl Larsen wrote:
> In my case I did a new computer and it had the SATA built in so I in
> error thought they were a lot faster data rate. But they work and the
> thinner cable is easy to work with.

Faster, just not incredibly faster.  Remember when plain old IDE/ATA
moved to UDMA?  How speeds were supposed to be radically faster, the
truth was that the initial burst of data *was* quite a lot quicker, but
subsequent streaming of data wasn't anywhere near as fast.  It was a
caching trick.

All these little speed increases depend on other things, how fast the
platter spins, how many heads, how much and fast the heads move about,
the interface, etc.  Many transfer speeds you see mentioned are the
theoretical maximums, during the best conditions.

Be warned that the SATA connectors aren't very robust.  Like the old
ribbon cables, you're expected to build a system and leave it alone.  If
you keep on fiddling, you can easily break the connectors.  This time,
though, the connectors on the drive are also as fragile as the ones on
the cables.

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