Olimex boards have a direct SATA connection.
This is on a Lime-A10 with a cheap 2.5&quot; 1TB drive, about 70% full so some fragmentation etc:<p># dd if=&#x2F;dev&#x2F;zero of=6G bs=1M count=6144<p>6144+0 records in<p>6144+0 records out<p>6442450944 bytes (6.4 GB) copied, 136.176 s, 47.3 MB&#x2F;s<p># dd if=6G of=&#x2F;dev&#x2F;null bs=1M<p>6144+0 records in<p>6144+0 records out<p>6442450944 bytes (6.4 GB) copied, 93.6363 s, 68.8 MB&#x2F;s<p>Also they have a nice battery connector, they&#x27;ll keep the battery charged and switch to it if main power fails (and even keep the SATA drive powered (not sure if you plug a 3.5&quot; one, though)).