SATA II to the Power of 3.0Gb/sec: Three Drives Reviewed

@ 2005/06/26
Our overview of the SATA II specification a few days ago provided our readers with some insight on what SATA II was really about. In short, SATA II provides updates to the SATA 1.0 specifications including new features and a possible increase in transfer rates from 1.5Gb/sec to 3.0Gb/sec if drive manufacturers decide to implement these features in their products. The new transfer rates depend on what combination of hardware is used to build a drive such as the port multiplier, port selector, cables, and connectors used in a storage system.

The first drives capable of 3.0Gb/sec transfer rates came to our attention a while back but we wanted to see a few other manufacturers show us their offerings before we dug deeper into the supposed higher speed drives. Hitachi was the first to market the SATA II 3.0Gb/sec drive with Samsung and Western Digital following. Samsung was nice enough to send us a test sample to work with and we picked up a Hitachi and Western Digital model in time.

Comment from Rutar @ 2005/06/27
But at which cost? Noisy, expensive, small :/
Comment from Faiakes @ 2005/06/27
The Raptor is still king, from what I can see.
Comment from Sidney @ 2005/06/26
Definition of SONE

http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/~jw/dB.html

SONE doesn't exist without dB, therefore you suggestion to trash dB measurement unit will never work.
Comment from Rutar @ 2005/06/26
I understand the difference, it's still dam retarded when another review is stating a 2.6 to 5.4 sone difference which is really reflecting the difference between a Raptor screamer and a Samsung HD.

those dba ratings have to be trashed as they do not carry any usefull information, worse they are completly missleading
Comment from Sidney @ 2005/06/26
Quote:
I'm not buyng this ****.
You don't have to ..... however, you must understand the difference between dB, dBA and dBC.

Your hearing response to frequency and dB differs from individual; the chart is for comparison using dB.
Comment from Rutar @ 2005/06/26
I went STRAIGHT to thermal and accoustics. I'm not believing their numbers at all.

chip.de testing is showing massive differences but they use sone, a Raptor being just as quiet as the Samsung Spinpoints in dba, I'm not buyng this ****.