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There are many reviews around the web claiming that SSDs are much faster than HDDs (tomshardware, notebookcheck, technize) . Nowadays I see more and more HDs that have SATA3 interface, which allegedly has twice the throughput of SATA2. But if hard drives are slower than SATA2 SSDs then why to use SATA3 in hard drives at all? Clearly HDs don't utilize even SATA2. The only reason I could think of is that maybe HDs, once in a while, have bursts that use more than SATA2 can give but in average still have low throughput. Is it so or are there other reasons?

Update: Found a different question with an answer that probably answers my question.

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It's outrageous that this question is closed as subjective. I'm afraid, Diago, you didn't understand the question. It isn't talking about brands or matters of taste. It is about two generations of the same technology and whether the newer generation could actually be utilized by the existing products. What's subjective about that? – FireAphis Nov 22 '10 at 11:16
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@Diago I have to disagree. The question is clearly asking WHY one technology is being used with another. NOT, which is better. My answer has NOTHING to do with which is better. I state it is strictly an economic consideration. – Everett Nov 22 '10 at 15:58
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I'm asking why one technology is used with the other when there are no apparent (to me) reasons for that. Moreover, asking why one technology is better than other isn't necessarily subjective. For example, there is a wide consensus that SATA was an improvement over IDE. Why isn't it legitimate to ask why is it considered an improvement? – FireAphis Nov 22 '10 at 19:01
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@JYelton I suggest all of you take some time to review the FAQ. This is a discussion. Super User is an Q&A site. If you want to discuss something, take it to chat, if you want to ask a question, within the scope of the FAQ, then read it, understand it and apply it. There is reasons why Super User is strongly moderated. – Diago Nov 22 '10 at 19:20
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@Diago: I disagree. Just because there can be multiple answers to a question does not mean it (the question) is a discussion. – Hello71 Nov 22 '10 at 21:52
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closed as not constructive by Diago Nov 22 '10 at 10:45

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2 Answers

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SATA3 in a hard drive is marketing hype. The performance is limited by the speed that information can be sucked off the platter (related to rotational speed) and head + sector seek time (limit = rotational speed + head movement speed).

SATA3 for an SSD makes much more sense because (compared to HDD) the sucking-off-platter time and head / sector seek time don't exist.

SATA3 compared to SATA2 on a HDD may make a VERY SMALL difference a VERY SMALL amount of the time. Thats all though. However the manufacturers need to play the game (my data xfer rate is faster than yours... so there!) - it may also be that chipsets for SATA3 come down in price and become more prevalent making it cheap and easy to do - so they might as well. In terms of performance, its marginal.

Somewhere on the wonderous interwebs I found a big write up on all this, be nice to remember where it was :)

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Tom's Hardware (tomshardware.com) has a lot of good information plus benchmark results on hard drives. A lot of attention has been devoted to SSD vs HDD as well as SATA2 vs SATA3. – JYelton Nov 22 '10 at 17:56
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Economics. Look up the cost of a 512GB 2.5" SSD, and compare it to the cost of a 2.5" 512 GB HD that has a SATA3 interface.

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