Model Of Hard Drive Can Influence Transfer Speeds
When you use an external hard drive, the primary concern is how you can achieve the best transfer speeds. For this, you will have to identify the bottleneck of these external storage drives and also try to figure out what might be slowing your drive down. It is only then you can improve the speed of data transfer.
Different models of hard drives
The most significant aspect that may alter the speed of data transfer of the USB type c hard drive is the model of the drive. There are different types and specifications of these hard drives that you can choose from.
- HDD or SDD: You can choose between Hard Disk Drives (HDD) and Solid State Drives (SSD) for your purpose. The transfer will vary however on the specific type you choose even if it is of the same type. Therefore, it is a good idea to always check the specifications of the drives first and along with it if possible you must also refer to an actual test result with the specific type of drive you wish to purchase.
- SATA HDD: Depending on the specific type of drive you choose to use and its interface there may be a few specific limitations. A SATA HDD usually has one extra rotating disk or platter and usually has the speed limited to about 100-200 MB per second. This is due to the way the data is stored or accessed. However, you can line multiple drives to achieve better speed but in most cases, the bottleneck will be the type of hard drive itself.
- SATA-III SSD: This is a solid state drive that you will find in most of the models nowadays. This specific drive can provide a maximum speed of about 550 MB per second. This is usually the limit of the SATA-III interface which is also known as SATA 6B/s or SATA 3 interface.
- TRIM: Another useful component that can affect the rate of transfer for a solid state disk is the TRIM. When the drive is used without the TRIM support for a longer period of time, you may experience reduced performance. However, to make the TRIM work properly, it must be supported by all the components inside including the drive itself, the OS as well as the enclosure.
PCIe or NVMe
There is another specific type of solid state disk called the PCIe drive that can potentially reach much faster speeds as compared to any SATA-III drive. These models can be a SATA, an AHCI or even an NVMe based SSD. However, there are a few things that you should keep in mind when you want to use a PCIe drive:
- An NVMe based SSD will deliver the fastest speeds but macOS will not support any third party NVMe drives
- It works best only on Windows
- The speed of the drive may be limited by the specific type of interface.
The actual speed reached will once again depend entirely on the specific model and type of the drive.
More on this topic: AnyTrans, The Swiss Army Knife Of File Transfer
