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10k External HDD

I

iMackPro

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 31, 2011
333
0
http://www.amazon.com/WESTERN-VELOC...9T0M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1302853486&sr=8-1

i use to want a wifi hard drive but i fear even with an N router it wont be fast enough for what im wanting to do..
will this hard drive be a pretty quick external? ive never used a 10k rpm hard drive before are they pretty speedy? I have a SSD in my computer so now im spoiled on quickness. i know this wont be even close to a SSD but is it worth the extra cash opposed to a 5400 or 7200 rpm drive? its going to be used for basically blu rays and movies. to store them on this and watch them through my tv, and then transfer back on the hard drive after i have watched it..

can someone give me some info on this drive? brand? speed etc?!

thank you so much!!

also, should i get a 12k rpm drive? or will the sata ports not be able to handle the speed and will it be wasted, also, should i just wait for a thunderbolt HDD ?
 
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It would all be a waste of money right now!

With the fastest current connection available for your MBP (FW800) you can only move 80-90 MB per second at BEST. You can hope for maybe 60-70MB per second in real world speed. A 5200RPM HDD will read and write faster than the FW800 can deliver it. So if you laid out the big money for a 10000 or 12000 RPM HDD firewire 800 would be effectively slowing it down to speeds slower than a 5200RPM HDD. This would not be a very smart way to go.

You are best off waiting and using your current system until a Thunderbolt external enclosure is available then putting the fastest HDD you can find in that enclosure.
 
rmitchell248 said:
you should also do some more research on the drives you want as well, the Velociraptors are not the fastest thing around anymore. In the 3.5 drives the 7200RPM Hitachi DeskStar 3k7000 is actually faster and holds 3TB of data for cheaper.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Hitachi/0S03208/
Click to expand...

appreciate it man!! but i was thinking about buying it when they had a connector for T H U N D E R B O L T:D im so dam excited for it!!!! so when they have the peripheral connection for thunderbolt would it then be a very very fast drive if it spun up to 10k or 12k HDD ?
 
iMackPro said:
appreciate it man!! but i was thinking about buying it when they had a connector for T H U N D E R B O L T:D im so dam excited for it!!!! so when they have the peripheral connection for thunderbolt would it then be a very very fast drive if it spun up to 10k or 12k HDD ?
Click to expand...

Yes it would be able to use the full speed of the HDD with thunderbolt. The only thing again to keep in mind is that a 300-600GB 10k or 12k HDD that costs more and is not as fast as a 3TB 7200RPM HDD does not do much for you. All it does is Spend more of your money and uses more power while providing less storage!

I personally would stay away from the 10-12k HDD's these days as they just are not what they used to be with the other technology coming up. 10k or 12k does not equal a fast HDD.

There are more HDDs out there but I personally use the hitachi 3tb 7k3000 and love them. I have used MANY other HDDs and this I have found to suite me best in terms of speed reliability and capacity.

http://macperformanceguide.com/Storage-Drive-Hitachi-7K3000-3TB.html
 
rmitchell248 said:
I personally would stay away from the 10-12k HDD's these days as they just are not what they used to be with the other technology coming up. 10k or 12k does not equal a fast HDD.

http://macperformanceguide.com/Storage-Drive-Hitachi-7K3000-3TB.html
Click to expand...


I thought the higher the RPM the faster the load read write times were?! i though thats exactly what made the hard drive faster because it could spin faster and look up data faster? can you explain to me how a 7200 hd will be faster than a 12k hard drive? thank you!
 
and anything above 500 GB is plenty of space for me, after i get close to filling it up ill just delete some movies, thats all ill be using this for. My music library is like 9 gigs so it'll just always be on my oem SSD
 
iMackPro said:
I thought the higher the RPM the faster the load read write times were?! i though thats exactly what made the hard drive faster because it could spin faster and look up data faster? can you explain to me how a 7200 hd will be faster than a 12k hard drive? thank you!
Click to expand...

Platter density. With denser platters the heads don't have to move as far to retrieve the data. With all things equal, speed would be king, but that is not the case when you have slower drives with lower numbers of platters and the density per platter is higher. With lots of the higher drives the number of platters is larger and the density is lower so the heads have to travel farther to retrieve the data. They would overcome this limitation by spinning the drive faster.

Think of it this way, which would yield better results, trying to find a random book among 200 books on 2 shelves within a 1 foot area, or trying to find that same random book among the same 200 books spread out over 50 shelves over a 1000 ft area?? You would have to run pretty fast to match the success rate of the denser area, hence the faster speed needed (as in the past all storage was the second option of large surface areas).
 
iMackPro said:
I thought the higher the RPM the faster the load read write times were?! i though thats exactly what made the hard drive faster because it could spin faster and look up data faster? can you explain to me how a 7200 hd will be faster than a 12k hard drive? thank you!
Click to expand...

That is how technology evolves! The common thought with computer processors was that a higher GHZ processor would be faster too. Well the 2.3GHZ quadcore processor in your 2011 Macbook Pro is actually faster than the 2010 2.8GHZ quadcore processor in a Mac Pro.

So where as processors ran at a higher GHZ to be 'faster' HDD's were running at a higher RPM to be 'faster' Now as technology is evolving these components are becoming more efficient and they are able to make up for the speed of the drive in other areas such as platter density where the data is tighter on the disc. Another thing to keep in mind is that generally the main area that the 10,000 RPM drives were faster is in locating the files. That is where the RPM of the drive came into play not so much in the reading and writing. This benefited people who were playing games that needed constant access to many files on the HDD.

Now if you are accessing a movie, any drive will find it and set it up for transfer or play in your movie player faster than it would be humanly possible to tell the difference between any drive available today wether it be 5200rpm, 7200 or 12000.
 
squeakr said:
Platter density. With denser platters the heads don't have to move as far to retrieve the data. With all things equal, speed would be king, but that is not the case when you have slower drives with lower numbers of platters and the density per platter is higher. With lots of the higher drives the number of platters is larger and the density is lower so the heads have to travel farther to retrieve the data. They would overcome this limitation by spinning the drive faster.

Think of it this way, which would yield better results, trying to find a random book among 200 books on 2 shelves within a 1 foot area, or trying to find that same random book among the same 200 books spread out over 50 shelves over a 1000 ft area?? You would have to run pretty fast to match the success rate of the denser area, hence the faster speed needed (as in the past all storage was the second option of large surface areas).
Click to expand...

oh i gotcha! thanks a lot man!!!!

im looking on that website for what the platter density is. i cant find it, would you mind telling me what:

1) What the platter density of that hitachi drive is?
2) What the platter drive of a stock 5400 MBP drive is?
3) What the avg platter density would be?
4) what an ideal platter density would be? Like greater to or equal to this drive you showed me! id LOVE TO get this dense of a drive while still retaining my 10k rpm, tell me that wouldn't just be nasty with a thunderbolt hook up?! or maybe in Optibay? or would Optibay not be able to handle these speeds?!


No more questions lol. but thank you so much for everything ou given me so far. id REALLY REALLY appreciate it if you could answer those last couple of questions though bud
 
I think that 10k RPM is something that is stuck in your head that needs to go away. Its almost like something to tell the kids after class while shooting the breeze.... To me it sounds like 8 an year old idea thats still hanging on as cool since its really no longer needed.
 
Not all manufacturers will post platter density, but some will post the number of platters in a drive model. Common sense says that the higher the drive capacity and the lower the number of platters the greater the density and if the seek times are low that pretty much confirms it, especially the rand access ones. The exception to that can be when dual sided platters are used as that changes the number. It really is a science and the controller have a lot to do with it as well.

I wish I could help you on the specs, but I really don't know them. Most of this information I have gathered over the years, especially when I worked for a hard drive parts manufacturer. The read/ write and throughput change things as well. These days it is a lot more complex then higher speed = faster drive (it still holds true when all other factors and variables are the same except for the speed.
 
squeakr said:
Not all manufacturers will post platter density, but some will post the number of platters in a drive model. Common sense says that the higher the drive capacity and the lower the number of platters the greater the density and if the seek times are low that pretty much confirms it, especially the rand access ones. The exception to that can be when dual sided platters are used as that changes the number. It really is a science and the controller have a lot to do with it as well.

I wish I could help you on the specs, but I really don't know them. Most of this information I have gathered over the years, especially when I worked for a hard drive parts manufacturer. The read/ write and throughput change things as well. These days it is a lot more complex then higher speed = faster drive (it still holds true when all other factors and variables are the same except for the speed.
Click to expand...


appreciate it man. ill look into this hitachi, im pretty sure ill be getting it, no my next question is can i find this kind of model in an optibay ?
 
rmitchell248 said:
I think that 10k RPM is something that is stuck in your head that needs to go away. Its almost like something to tell the kids after class while shooting the breeze.... To me it sounds like 8 an year old idea thats still hanging on as cool since its really no longer needed.
Click to expand...

if i could gather the money why would i not want to buy such a fast HDD ?
i literally just learned 2 minutes ago that RPM isn't the only thing involved when it comes to speed so lay off.

either help me figure out some of the fastest HDD or GTFO
 
iMackPro said:
appreciate it man. ill look into this hitachi, im pretty sure ill be getting it, no my next question is can i find this kind of model in an optibay ?
Click to expand...

no sorry, those will not fit in the optibay! Those drives are 3.5'' you need 2.5'' to go anywhere in your laptop.

The fastest 2.5 drive that I know of that will go into the optibay (that is not an SSD) is the WD 7200 Scorpio Black.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Western Digital/WD7500BPKT/

Imagine telling the girls that you have a black scorpio in your optibay.... mmhmmm
 
rmitchell248 said:
or you can get this

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/SSDMX6G480/

this is nearly 4 times faster than the Hitachi 3TB HDD, 5 times faster than the Scorpio Black and 2.5 times faster than the Apple SSD that you have in your laptop now.....
Click to expand...

not quite big enough… can you find me something thats around 300$ or less thats extremely fast. I really was hoping to find a very dense disk at 10k rpm. maybe ill just settle with that hitachi drive :( i really would like to have a very fast one though since the smallest file ill be transferring is 7 gigs. and i have a lot!


please help me find a blazingly fast HDD for around 300ish dollars! anything around 1 TB is perfect
 
iMackPro said:
if i could gather the money why would i not want to buy such a fast HDD ?
i literally just learned 2 minutes ago that RPM isn't the only thing involved when it comes to speed so lay off.

either help me figure out some of the fastest HDD or GTFO
Click to expand...

I don't think he was laying into you.

Anyway, in an optibay, I think the biggest/fastest drive you can get is a 7200rpm 1TB drive.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148710

It's expensive, but could be worth it.

Remember to fit it properly if using an optibay because it will probably be a big source of vibration if it isn't in tightly. Also, it'll probably warm up a bit, but 7200rpm with 417Gb/in2 data density it will probably be super fast.

One thing to check will be it's height though. I'm not sure if 15mm is too high to fit.

EDIT, yeah, it's way too thick to fit in a laptop
 
iMackPro said:
I thought the higher the RPM the faster the load read write times were?! i though thats exactly what made the hard drive faster because it could spin faster and look up data faster? can you explain to me how a 7200 hd will be faster than a 12k hard drive? thank you!
Click to expand...

1. Higher capacity drives fit more data onto each track. Therefore, the 3 TB drive will read more data in one rotation than a lower capacity drive. Depending on the difference in speed and data density, the lower rpm drive may transfer more bytes per second than the higher rpm drive.

2. Fuller disks are slower, and bigger drives are less full. If you put 500 GB on a 3 TB drive, it is just 16% full, while a 600 GB drive would be 84% full. When the drive is only 16% full, it will use only a few tracks on the outside, which have a higher data density than the tracks in the middle that the 84% full device needs to use. So the difference in transfer speed grows. On top of that, since the bigger drive uses fewer tracks, the drive heads have to move across fewer tracks on the average which is quicker, by a factor five in this case with five times more capacity.

(At some point one company sold a super fast 320 GB drive that beat all the other 320 GB drives in benchmarks, but was a bit more expensive. Turned out the 320 GB drive was actually a 500 GB drive with 180 GB unused. )

And apart from running quicker, bigger hard drives store more data which is good as well.
 
gnasher729 said:
1. Higher capacity drives fit more data onto each track. Therefore, the 3 TB drive will read more data in one rotation than a lower capacity drive. Depending on the difference in speed and data density, the lower rpm drive may transfer more bytes per second than the higher rpm drive.

2. Fuller disks are slower, and bigger drives are less full. If you put 500 GB on a 3 TB drive, it is just 16% full, while a 600 GB drive would be 84% full. When the drive is only 16% full, it will use only a few tracks on the outside, which have a higher data density than the tracks in the middle that the 84% full device needs to use. So the difference in transfer speed grows. On top of that, since the bigger drive uses fewer tracks, the drive heads have to move across fewer tracks on the average which is quicker, by a factor five in this case with five times more capacity.

(At some point one company sold a super fast 320 GB drive that beat all the other 320 GB drives in benchmarks, but was a bit more expensive. Turned out the 320 GB drive was actually a 500 GB drive with 180 GB unused. )

And apart from running quicker, bigger hard drives store more data which is good as well.
Click to expand...


greatly appreciate it man, i just started a thread dedicated to posting links and telling anyone good fast HDDs that will fit in the Optibay, feel free to post some links or even just name off one that will work. My budget is 300$ and id like to find the fastest one possible. thanks again for helping me understand just a little bit more, im seriously considering the Hitachi 3TB drive now after reading this. im pretty sure ill be purchasing this drive unless someone else finds me a better deal!
 
steviem said:
I don't think he was laying into you.

Anyway, in an optibay, I think the biggest/fastest drive you can get is a 7200rpm 1TB drive.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148710

It's expensive, but could be worth it.

Remember to fit it properly if using an optibay because it will probably be a big source of vibration if it isn't in tightly. Also, it'll probably warm up a bit, but 7200rpm with 417Gb/in2 data density it will probably be super fast.

One thing to check will be it's height though. I'm not sure if 15mm is too high to fit.

EDIT, yeah, it's way too thick to fit in a laptop
Click to expand...

i thank you in all of the help you have given me sir. im not AT ALL worried about the heat being emitted from this drive because like i said ill only be using it while im watching movies, so it'll be on my desk in a stand breathing pretty well. once im done watching my blu ray ill do everything i possibly can to make the drive get to as close to sleeping as possible! this is why i want such a fast drive so i can quickly copy a large file of 10-12 GB to my SSD to play it on VLC through an HDMI to my 60" plasma :D

thanks for the link… and the search continues!!!

i made another thread dedicated to anyone who wants to go the Optibay route but is like me and doesn't know where to get the fastest HDDs.

i hope it will help a lot more people than me!

thank you very much again sir (ma'am) you have been very very helpful this morning
 
iMackPro said:
this is why i want such a fast drive so i can quickly copy a large file of 10-12 GB to my SSD to play it on VLC through an HDMI to my 60" plasma :D
Click to expand...
Why do you need to copy the files on your SSD? The movies would play back just as fine directly from any (no need for "superfast") optibay HDD or external Firewire/USB 2.0 HDD.
 
iMackPro said:
if i could gather the money why would i not want to buy such a fast HDD ?
i literally just learned 2 minutes ago that RPM isn't the only thing involved when it comes to speed so lay off.

either help me figure out some of the fastest HDD or GTFO
Click to expand...


I just ran across this and think you really need to lighten up. I was having fun with you. Good luck in your quest to find the fastest HDD you can, I will take the GTFO option.
 
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