Testing SATA3 on WD Black?

[sasquatch182]

Ok, I just bought this SATA3 WD Black 1TB

I have it installed in a Gigabyte P55A-UDP4 which has SATA3. I am running Windows7 .

How do I know that it is running as fast as possible? Is there a utility I can download to test what kind of data transfer I am getting.

I'm worried there is a driver I need for windows 7 to recognize the faster speeds. I know I will not get 6Gpbs on a hard drive but hope its faster than the SATA2 drive I already have installed.

I am using the 1Tb drive for only videos I am ripping from a camcorder. Wife wants vids of the kids put on DVD.

Thanks for any advice

 

[DJ_Datte]

You are not likely to get SATA2 speeds on a hard drive either. So don't worry

 

[Jesse B]

You're lucky to even fully saturate SATA I with a standard hard drive. Even if you manage to, there's no way you'll come close to SATA II speeds. SATA III is only really useful with the newest generation of SSD's.

 

[dustNbone]

The new drive will probably be faster than the older one, but not because it's got a faster interface. The gain will be because the new drive will probably have a higher density than the older one as hard drive technology is always moving this way. SATA2 is capable of about 300MB a second and even the new drive will be unlikely to hit 150. As for testing it to get the actual numbers alot of people use HDTune and CrystalDiskMark. I generally use these utilities to confirm that a drive is working correctly, as long as the results are within 10-15% of what the manufacturer quotes I consider it a pass.

Dustin