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To choose the best internal hard drive, consider physical size and connection type, then capacity, seek time, data transfer speed, cache size, and noise level. Motherboard compatibility is important. Capacity is measured in GB or TB, seek time in ms, transfer rate in RPM or GB/sec, cache size in MB. Noise is measured in dBA.
There are several methods to identify the best internal hard drive. In most cases, the physical size and connection type will help narrow down the available options. Once you have a smaller list of drives, the capacity, seek time, and data transfer speed is often sufficient for most users. Occasionally, the size of their cache and the amount of noise they make will help make the final decision.
The first method of shrinking an internal hard drive has very little to do with the drive itself. There are two common types of internal hard drives: IDE (integrated drive electronics) and SATA (serial advanced technology attachment). Some motherboards have room for both, but most only accept one type of drive, so you need to find out what your motherboard can handle. Next is physical size: A typical desktop computer requires a 3.5″ drive and a laptop requires a 2.5″ drive. This is almost always the case, but there is a chance that one system is different.
Many people will buy a new internal hard drive for storage. As a result, capacity is often a very important factor for many buyers. Drive capacity is usually expressed in gigabytes (GB) and terabytes (TB). This printed size is the unformatted capacity; after formatting the drive will lose about 10% of its total space.
An internal hard drive has a quality called seek time. This is the amount of time it takes for the drive to find the stored information. This time is typically measured in milliseconds (ms), and you want the number to be as low as possible. Typical home drives vary between 9 and 12 ms, but there are drives available with much higher and lower seek times.
Data transfer rate is the speed at which the internal hard drive can send and receive information. Some drives provide a specific transfer rate, such as 3GB/sec, while others don’t. If your drive does not specify a transfer speed, the drive’s spindle speed, measured in revolutions per minute (RPM), provides a rough indication. The three most common RPMs are 5,400, 7,200 and 10,000, with higher being better.
The drive cache size is a type of internal storage. This will store information the unit deems necessary and commands it is currently unable to execute. Because this information is held in memory rather than recorded on the drive, it is much faster to retrieve it. The larger the cache, the more information it can store. Cache size is measured in megabytes (MB), and the larger the better.
The last common factor in choosing a hard drive is noise. Unit noise is measured in audible decibels (dBA), and you want the number to be as low as possible. While this factor is often not important to many users, some systems require very quiet components.
