How to compare performance speed between two external drives?

bernatbosch · Jan 21, 2018

Hi guys,

I was checking some external drives and their prices on the website of amazon. I was surprised to see that two models with the same storage capacity (2 TB) and with data transfer speeds of 5.120 MB/s and 625 MB/s respectively (so big difference...) could have almost the same price!

Do you think this is possible? How can two HHD have so different data transfer speed???

model: Transcend StoreJet 25M3 TS2TSJ25M3
data transfer speed: 5.120 MB/s
storage capacity: 2.000 GB
price: 100

model: LaCie Porsche Design - External Hard Drive for Mac & PC 2 TB (USB 3.1 Type-C, 2.5')
data transfer speed: 625 MB/s
storage capacity: 2.000 GB
price: 109

model: LaCie Rugged - External Hard Drive for Mac y PC 2 TB (Thunderbolt + USB 3.0, 2.5' )
data transfer speed: 130 MB/s although in other spec info says 5.120 MB/s (?)
storage capacity: 2.000 GB
price: 483

model: Glyph 2TB atomraid SSD USBC (3.1gen2) USB3/tbolt3 (BLK) AR2000
data transfer speed: 6Gbps
storage capacity: 2.000 GB
price: 845

Another question is how to correctly compare the performance of two external drive models?

Is everything about the data transfer speed? Is it even the most important factor?

Finally, how to compare speeds expressed in Gbps and MB/s?

USAFRet · Jan 21, 2018

Links to these specific drives, so that we don't have to go searching around?

bernatbosch · Jan 21, 2018

https://www.amazon.com/Transcend-StoreJet-Military-External-TS2TSJ25M3/dp/B00K087BM2/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1516568083&sr=1-1&keywords=Transcend+StoreJet+25M3+TS2TSJ25M3

https://www.amazon.com/LaCie-Porsche-Design-Mobile-STFD2000403/dp/B01GV3FB4Y/ref=sr_1_4?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1516567964&sr=1-4&keywords=LaCie+Porsche+Design

https://www.amazon.com/LaCie-Rugged-Thunderbolt-Portable-LAC9000489/dp/B00KTUVR44/ref=sr_1_4?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1516567786&sr=1-4&keywords=LaCie+Rugged

https://www.amazon.com/Glyph-Black-USB-C-Compatible-Thunderbolt/dp/B00Z14VR0C/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1516568111&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=Glyph+2TB+atomraid+SSD+USBC

As you will see, the speed specs are a bit confusing... (at least to me)

USAFRet · Jan 21, 2018

1. Disregard that last one, the Glyph Atom. That is just silly for $845.

2. The "LaCie Rugged", you're paying extra for the rubberized case.

2. The main limiting factor is the interface, not the drive.
USB 3.0, USB 3.1, Thunderbolt.

bernatbosch · Jan 21, 2018

Is there some kind of website with trustable information on performance and specs of any hard drive in the market?

I mean something like https://browser.geekbench.com/mac-benchmarks for computer benchmarks
or something like https://everymac.com/ultimate-mac-comparison-chart/ for mac computers comparison

USAFRet · Jan 21, 2018

In addition, you're comparing different types of drives.
SSD vs spinning platter.

The LaCie drives and Transcend are a regular 5400RPM HDD in a fancy case.
The other one is an SSD.

The difference in ?numbers" you see are simply what they choose to tell you.

For isntance, for the LaCie Porsche:
"Delivers speeds of up to 5 Gb/s"
"5Gb/s (maximum theoretical bus speed)" https://www.lacie.com/personal/porsche-design/porsche-design-mobile-drive/#specs

That's like saying if you drive a Prius on a road with a 200mph speed limit, your Prius has a "maximum theoretical speed of 200mph"

Again, the interface is the limiting factor here.

Comparisons? A simple google away:
https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2400958,00.asp
http://www.techradar.com/news/best-external-desktop-and-portable-hard-disk-drives
https://www.cnet.com/topics/storage/best-hard-drives-and-storage/portable-drives/
https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-portable-hard-drive/

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How to compare performance speed between two external drives?

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