3-4TB performance Drive Comparision

[Nero-One]

I need a 3TB drive for my main documents / scratch disk and want the best "real-world" performance; not exactly throughout like coping large amounts to and from though that is obviously important but more "random access speed" so i guess IOPS?

I would be fine with the 3TB Toshiba P300 - HDWD130UZSVA

But then the 4TB Toshiba P300 has 128mg cache - HDWE140EZSTA

And a step further the 4TB WD Black has 256GB cache - WD4005FZBX

I know that cache size is not everything but was wondering which drive people would recommend

I do have a penchant for quite drives but don’t mind a bit of noise if the performance gain is worth it

Price isn’t exactly an issue but don’t want to waste money on a drive which isn’t worth marginal gains

Thanks for any help

 

[APM]

I've been using the Toshiba for over a year as the main import/export drive on my machine here and it works quietly enough for me,maybe not the best write speeds but will copy over 10GB files in a few minutes.

 

[Armadillo]

I'd get the toshiba. Don't mind noise when active, but the thud/click noise that the new blacks do every 5s when idling is awful. Apparently something to do with pwl, but it's annoying.

 

[Vimes]

I asked a friend a very similar question recently as I knew that he had a 4TB WD Black.

Her told me that eventually he swapped out the black for a Toshiba x300 drive.

His opinion was that the Toshiba seems just as capable but infinitely more quiet over that of the very noisy Black.

 

[andy_mk3]

Might be worth considering an SSD cache drive to go with it? Intel optane or similar if your board supports it. Can make a massive difference.

 

[Nero-One]

Thanks for the suggestions...

Lastly would there be any noticeable real-wrold performance gains from the 3TB version which has 64mb Cache vs the 4TB version with has 128mb Cache?