Which is better for Recording Gameplay(which is faster)? SATA1 or USB 3?

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thethiny

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Nov 16, 2013
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Hi,
So last week I was able to record Emulators' gameplay at 2K resolution at 60 FPS using my SATA1 HDD.
But today, the max I can get at the same settings is 45 FPS, along with slow loading times and constant freezing. So I knew it is an HDD problem.
I have an external USB 3.0 which is supposedly faster than SATA 1 HDD (and maybe SATA 2?).

I decided to do the following:
1-Run the game on USB 3 and record to SATA
2-Run the game on USB 3 and record to the same USB 3
3-Run the game on SATA and record to USB 3

1-I got pretty much the same effect as recording on SATA and playing on SATA. 45~60 FPS.
2-I got maximum 45 FPS, which I found weird.
3-I got 60 FPS of recording and 60 FPS of gameplay. Which is perfect.

So the question here is,
if USB 3.0 is supposed to be faster than SATA1, how come I'm getting better results from running and recording on SATA1 to SATA1 than running and recording on USB 3 to USB 3?
Maybe USB 3 is faster in reading than SATA 1 but slower in writing?

thanks!
 
Solution
popatim
We need model#'s of the drives to determine their performance to better answer your questions but for reference, its always better to record to a separate drive than the one you game to. You really don't want to force a drive to read and write at the same time. Some go to the extreme of having a separate OS drive too.
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dio_free

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Sep 9, 2008
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I don't know if this will help but:

SATA1 = up to 1.5 gb/ps *old technology,how old is your machine?
USB3.0 = up to 6 gb/ps

Question I'd pose first is what kind of drive are you using for the external drive. We need to operate under the lowest common demoninator rule here so if the drive specs in the external are poor, it won't make any difference having usb 3.0 connectivity.

Another thing to compare is write speeds vs read speed. Running the game is more 'read' focused, whereas the recording process is purely 'write', so it may be useful to compare the relevant read/write speeds with each approach.
 
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giantbucket

giantbucket

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Nov 17, 2013
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in either case, most current (mechanical) hard drives are unlikely to exceed SATA1 speeds anyways (150MB/s to 200MB/s seems to be the current HDD sustained speeds). in this case, both USB3 and SATA2/3 are more than enough bandwidth.

unless you're somehow plugging in your USB3 drive into a USB2 port, or the port is otherwise crippled. USB2 is around 50MB/s, which IS slower than HDD can do with even basic SATA1.
 
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thethiny

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Nov 16, 2013
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I had an old machine (2007). Now I got a new PC but I kept the HDD as I needed the files.
The USB 3 I'm using is an External SEAGATE USB 3 connected through USB 3 port.

 
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popatim

popatim

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Dec 2, 2009
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We need model#'s of the drives to determine their performance to better answer your questions but for reference, its always better to record to a separate drive than the one you game to. You really don't want to force a drive to read and write at the same time. Some go to the extreme of having a separate OS drive too.
 
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Solution
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thethiny

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Nov 16, 2013
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I broke the mirrors I had, and I did some tests again and I found out that One Disk has issues writing (always recording to itself at 45FPS), and the other had issues Reading (always recording to itself at 60FPS no matter what, but slow loading screens).
 
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