Hard Drive Types

There are a few kinds of drives. Spinning disks - either 3.5” @ 7200rpm (faster) or 2.5” @ 5400rmp (slower). Then there are solid state drives (SSDs), there are the 2.5” versions of this (fast) and the NVME version of this (fastest). In addition there are RAIDs, which is a collection of drives in a specific configuration. RAIDs can be made up of all kinds drives, or a mix of drive types. They work best when the drive type is the same IMHO.  
 External SSD hard drives that can be USB-C or USB-A run faster R/W with USB-C even if the USB-A port is rated at the same speed as USB-C. This is confusing but tested on MAC and PC with Sandisk Extreme Pro 
 The interfaces below can communicate with a computer in various ways – directly via PCIE or SATA or through a external enclosure and a secondary interface such as USB or Thunderbolt.  
 
 
 
 Hard Drive Type 
 Interface 
 
 Max R/W Speed 
 Sequential 
 
 
 Average R/W Sustained Speeds 
 Sustained 
 
 
 
 
 
 Spinning Disk Drive 3.5" @ 7200 RPM 
 SATA I/II/III 
 210 MB/s 
 85 MB/s 
 
 
 Spinning Disk Drive 2.5" @ 5400 RPM 
 SATA I/II/III 
 120 MB/s 
 60 MB/s 
 
 
 Solid State Drive 2.5" 
 SATA III 
 600 MB/s 
 450-550 MB/s 
 
 
 Solid State Drive NVMe Gen 3 
 PCIE 3 
 3,500/3,000 MB/s 
 
 250-1,500 MB/s 
 Depending on temperature and cache 
 
 
 
 Solid State Drive NVMe Gen 4 
 PCIE 4 
 7,400/6,800 MB/s 
 Haven't used one – theoretical 
 
 
 Solid State Drive NVMe Gen 5 
 PCIE 5 
 14,000/10,000 MB/s 
 Haven't used one – theoretical 
 
 
 
 Format Types 
 
 FAT 
 ExFAT - Cross Platform, but no journaling, so drive caches re-index. If you haven't plugged one in a while, it takes some time to re-index.  
 FAT 32 - Legacy 
 NTFS - Windows Systems 
 APFS - Newer Mac Systems 
 HFS+ (Mac Os Extended) - Older Mac Systems 
 EXT4 - Linux