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The Rundown
One end plugs into a port on the motherboard, usually labeled SATA, and the other into the back of a storage device like a SATA hard drive. External hard drives can also be used with SATA connections, given, of course, that the hard drive itself has a SATA connection, too. This is called eSATA.
- Best Overall: Seagate 2TB FireCuda at Amazon, 'Ideal for desktop PCs, gaming machines, and workstations where quality performance counts every day.'
- Best Capacity:WD Blue 4TB at Amazon, 'Quick enough to work with intensive media files without waiting for the drive to catch up.'
- Best Speed: WD Black 6TB at Amazon, 'Designed to boost the performance of heavier computing, perfect for creatives and gamers alike.'
- Best Budget: WD Blue 1TB at Amazon, 'Offers such outstanding price-to-performance ratio that it's still Amazon’s best seller.'
- Runner-Up, Best Overall:Seagate 3TB BarraCuda at Amazon, 'An ideal choice for … a great combination of storage, quality, and speed.'
- Best Laptop:Seagate 2.5-Inch BarraCuda at Amazon, 'An ideal choice for laptop owners looking to kick performance and storage to the next level.'
- Best for Small Businesses:Seagate 6TB IronWolf Pro at Amazon, 'Aims to satisfy users who want a strong mix of performance and data protection.'
- Best for High Performance: WD Black 4TB at Amazon, 'Whether for music editing, online gaming, or general browsing, the dual-core processor pushes to the limits and slightly beyond.'
- Best Solid State:Samsung 860 EVO at Amazon, 'Provides an outstanding maximum read/write speed of 550 MB/s and 520 MB/s respectively.'
Our Top Picks
Best Overall: Seagate 2TB 7200RPM FireCuda
While hard drive capacity continues to get larger and larger every year, Seagate’s 2TB 7200RPM FireCuda 3.5 inch SATA drive offers more than enough space for music, video, and pictures. With enough space to store 80 25GB-sized games, the Seagate performs up to five times faster than traditional 7200RPM desktop drives. At 3.5 inches in form factor, the drive is ideal for desktop PCs, gaming machines, and workstations where reliable and quality performance count every day. As an added bonus (and for extra peace-of-mind), the FireCuda line is protected with a best-in-class, five-year limited warranty. With the potential for reading and write speeds greater than 200MB/s, the Seagate is a fantastic choice for any SATA shopper.
Best Capacity: WD Blue 4TB
For people who do a lot of intensive computer work such as video/music editing, graphic design, or computer modeling, the larger capacity may also be necessary. When storage is a must, the WD Blue 4TB is the best choice.
This hard drive has a 3.5” disc with 4TB of storage capacity. Operating at a standard 5400 RPM speed, it is quick enough to work with intensive media files without waiting for the drive to catch up. Other storage capacities and disc speeds are available as well if you need something more specific to your needs.
The drive’s IntelliSeek function is an active addition that manages the writing speed, power consumption and noise/vibration to keep everything working at peak efficiency. The hard drive works with WD’s Acronis True Image software, so you can easily backup the device for an added layer of safety. If you don’t want to worry about the health of the hard drive, this is the option to choose.
Best Speed: WD Black 6TB
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If it’s speed you crave, the WD Black series will satiate you. The line is designed to boost performance of heavier computing, perfect for creatives and gamers alike. It houses a dual-core processor that doubles the processing capability of a standard single-core processor to optimize performance. As such, it’s quoted to offer 218MB/s in sustaineds one of the speediest SATA hard drives on the market. On top of it all, the WD Black comes with a five-year limited warranty to deliver the protection you deserve.
Best Budget: WD Blue 1TB
Released in 2012, Western Digital's WD Blue 1TB might be slightly older, but it offers such an outstanding price-to-performance ratio that it's still Amazon’s best seller for internal hard drives. The 7200 RPM offers 1TB of space, which is smaller than most of the other choices on this list, but still, has more than enough room for 200,000 songs or more than 17 hours of music. Additionally, the WD Blue offers features like IntelliSeek, which calculates the optimum speed to lower both power consumption, as well as noise and vibration to protect against data loss. Moreover, Western Digital offers Acronis True Image software downloadable from their website to completely copy all the data from the previous hard drive to get up and running right away. It also has read and write speeds around 170MB/s.
Runner-Up, Best Overall: Seagate 3TB 7200RPM BarraCuda
Ideal for desktops, the Seagate 3TB 7200RPM BarraCuda 3.5-inch SATA internal hard drive is an ideal choice for buyers looking for a great combination of storage, quality, and speed. Capable of reading and writing data at speeds around 210MB/s, the BarraCuda is both versatile and dependable. Whether it’s work or play, storing movies or music, the BarraCuda can store around 300,000 songs without running out of space. It is ideal for both desktops or all-in-one PCs, but and Seagate offers an additional 2.5-inch model that is a perfect fit for laptops. Backed by a two-year limited warranty, the BarraCuda offers the right mix of versatility and reliability combined with a great value that makes it a hard choice to pass up.
Best Laptop: Seagate 2.5-Inch BarraCuda
Seagate’s 2.5-inch BarraCuda SATA drive is an ideal choice for laptop owners looking to kick performance and storage to the next level. With a 6GB/s data transfer speed and the capability of reading and write speeds of more than 140-150MB/s, the drive comes in both 7mm and 15mm z-heights to best fit your laptop. Additionally, read and write performance is optimized with Multi-Tier Caching Technology, MTC for short, which optimizes data flow and allows apps to load faster than ever before. As a bonus, it works well with numerous all-in-one PCs, as well as ultra-slim desktop PCs. It also comes with Seagate’s two-year limited warranty.
Best for Small Businesses: Seagate 6TB IronWolf Pro v11
Designed with small businesses in mind, the Seagate 6TB IronWolf Pro aims to satisfy hard drive users who want a strong mix of performance and data protection. Equipped with a 7,200 RPM spindle speed, 256 MB cache, and maximum read/write speed of 214 MB/s, the IronWolf is available in a range of sizes from 1TB to 12TB of storage. Specially optimized to fit and perform well in a single bay to 16 bay NAS enclosure, the Seagate establishes a 300TB per year user rating with an upload and download rating of 600,000 cycles.
For small businesses especially, Seagate’s two-year rescue data recovery service and five-year warranty add up to total peace of mind in the event of any unexpected crashing or data loss. 3d model software free download. To assist in mitigating potential data errors, the IronWolf Pro comes standard with rotational vibration sensors that maintain its high performance whether it sits alone in a NAS enclosure or alongside a multitude of other drives. If you want quiet performance, 24/7 runtime, and a lengthy warranty, the IronWolf Pro is an excellent choice.
Best for High Performance: WD Black 4TB
One of the fastest hard drives available, Western Digital's WD Black was constructed to boost the efficiency of any computer and it comes with a five-year warranty for added peace of mind. Whether it’s for music editing, online gaming, or general browsing, the dual-core processor of the Black pushes its performance to the limits and slightly beyond.
Regardless of use case, the WD Black begins as small as a 250GB storage model and goes all the way up to 6 TBs of capacity. For peak speed, users opting for the 5TB and 6TB storage option will receive an additional 128MB of cache DRAM which improves real-time operation so they can also achieve a maximum read/write speed of up to 218 MB/s. The inclusion of the dual-core processor enables the Black to significantly enhance performance, especially when loading large games or shuffling around multimedia files. In any case, it vastly outperforms single-core SATA drives under the same conditions. Taking things a step further, the WD Black shines with StableTrac technology which increases reliability and overall stability of the Black HDD lineup.
Best Solid State: Samsung 860 EVO
Make no mistake about it, the Samsung 860 EVO is proof that SATA-based solid-state drives can deliver excellent performance and still be affordable. Available in a multitude of sizes ranging from 500GB to 4TB, the 860 EVO provides an outstanding maximum read/write speed of 550 MB/s and 520 MB/s respectively. Well-suited for both desktops and laptops, the 860 EVO is ideal for all kinds of daily computing tasks including gaming, movie editing, or word processing without any performance degradation.
Compatible with Windows 8 and above as well as Apple and Linux software, the 2.5-inch SSD comes with all the necessary hardware to connect internally to a computer. Samsung touts the 860 EVO’s performance as being more than capable of storing and rendering 4K video while a five-year limited warranty adds an extra level of comfort. Powered by Samsung’s 64-layer V-NAND technology, the 860 can write data nearly eight times faster than its predecessor and it wins benchmark after benchmark in overall performance tests against its closest competitors.
What to Look for in a SATA Hard Drive
Speed -Although SATA (serial advanced technology attachment) hard drives are slower than SSDs (solid-state drives), you can still get a component with respectable speeds. The average speed for a desktop hard drive is about 7,200 revolutions per minute (rpm), but some high-performance models run up to 10,000 rpm.
Capacity -If you work in a technical or creative field, large capacity is likely important to you. Hard drive capacities have continued to grow over the years; today’s 3.5-inch hard drives max out around 10TB, and 2.5-inch drives hover around 4TB.
Form factor -Because SATA hard drives have spinning parts, they can be only so small. For desktop devices, they generally measure 3.5 inches, and for laptops, 2.5 inches.
PRODUCT DISCLOSURE $
SATA (pronounced say-da), short for Serial ATA (which is an abbreviation for Serial Advanced Technology Attachment), is an IDE standard first released in 2001 for connecting devices like optical drives and hard drives to the motherboard.
The term SATA generally refers to the types of cables and connections that follow this standard.
Serial ATA replaces Parallel ATA as the IDE standard of choice for connecting storage devices inside of a computer. SATA storage devices can transmit data to and from the rest of the computer much, much faster than an otherwise similar PATA device.
PATA is sometimes just called IDE. If you see SATA being used sort of as an opposite term with IDE, it just means that Serial and Parallel ATA cables or connections are being discussed.
SATA vs PATA
Compared to Parallel ATA, Serial ATA also has the benefit of cheaper cable costs and the ability to hot swap devices. To hot swap means that the devices can be replaced without turning off the entire system. With PATA devices, you have to shut off the computer before replacing the hard drive.
While SATA drives support hot swapping, the device using it must as well, like the operating system.
SATA cables themselves are much smaller than the fat PATA ribbon cables. This means that they're easier to manage because they don't take up as much space and can be tied up more easily, if need be. The thinner design also results in better airflow inside the computer case.
Like you read above, SATA transfer speeds are much higher than PATA. 133 MB/s is the fastest transfer speed possible with PATA devices, whereas SATA supports speeds from 187.5 MB/s to 1,969 MB/s (as of revision 3.2).
The maximum cable length of a PATA cable is just 18 inches (1.5 feet). SATA cables can be as long as 1 meter (3.3 feet). However, while a PATA data cable can have two devices attached to it at once, a SATA cable allows just one.
Some Windows operating systems don't support SATA devices, like Windows 95 and 98. However, since those versions of Windows are so outdated, it shouldn't be a concern these days.
Another disadvantage of SATA hard drives is that they sometimes require a special device driver before the computer can begin reading data from it and writing data to it.
More About SATA Cables & Connectors
SATA cables are long, 7-pin cables. Both ends are flat and thin, with one often made at a 90 degree angle for better cable management. One end plugs into a port on the motherboard, usually labeled SATA, and the other (such as the angled end) into the back of a storage device like a SATA hard drive.
External hard drives can also be used with SATA connections, given, of course, that the hard drive itself has a SATA connection, too. This is called eSATA. The way it works is that the external drive attaches to the eSATA connection at the back of the computer next to the other openings for things like the monitor, network cable, and USB ports. Inside the computer, the same internal SATA connection is made with the motherboard just like if the hard drive were fixed inside the case.
eSATA drives are hot-swappable in the same way as internal SATA drives.
Most computers don't come pre-installed with an eSATA connection on the back of the case. However, you can buy the bracket yourself pretty cheaply. Monoprice's 2 Port Internal SATA to eSATA Bracket, for example, is less than $10.
However, one caveat with external SATA hard drives is that the cable doesn't transfer power, only data. This means that unlike some external USB drives, eSATA drives require a power adapter, like one that plugs into the wall.
SATA Converter Cables
There are various adapters you can purchase if you need to convert an older cable type to SATA or convert SATA to some other connection type.
For example, if you want to use your SATA hard drive through a USB connection, like to wipe the drive, browse through the data, or back up the files, you can buy a SATA to USB adapter. Through Amazon, you can get something like this SATA/PATA/IDE Drive to USB Adapter Converter Cable for just that purpose.
There are also Molex converters you can use if your power supply doesn't provide the 15-pin cable connection that you need to power your internal SATA hard drive. Those cable adapters are pretty inexpensive, like this one from Micro SATA Cables.