Help with HDD choice for gaming.

Snowy2012

Snowy2012

Snowy2012

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18 Nov 2012
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Hi,

I am just about to get a new PC (5820k @ 4.4Ghz/GTX 980/16Gb DDR4).

The primary boot/OS drive (win 7) will be a Samsung Evo Pro 512Gb. This will host my opsys and all my applications (Photoshop etc...)

I want a secondary mechanical drive to store all my games and I am trying to decide between :

1. 3Tb WD Caviar Green Intellipower (WD30EZRX)

2. 3Tb Seagate Barracuda ST3000DM001

3. 2Tb Seagate SSHD Hybrid (8Gb) ST2000DX001

4. 2Tb WD Black WD2003FZEX

I am not too worried about only having 2Tb rather than 3Tb as I have lots of external storage for backup.

I am guessing the loudest will be Option 4 and the quietest will be Option 1. I am worried that Option 4 will be too loud and that Option 1 will be too slow to run the games off.

Any ideas please ?
 
4. 2Tb WD Black WD2003FZEX

Would be my choice fast, Western Digital, reliable . I can hear it but then I have a very quiet system and where all my games go.

For pure speed 3. 2Tb Seagate SSHD Hybrid (8Gb) ST2000DX001 probably is faster but personally I would avoid Seagate but that's my experience.
 
I wouldn't bother with the Hybrid as that would be better used as boot drive if you didn't want to use a SSD.

Any games that really need an SSD should be installed on your Evo Pro.

I wouldn't recommend any of the HDD you have listed. :D

Toshiba 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6GB/s
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-034-TS

Or the 3TB though out of stock atm :<
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-027-TS

Fast 2 year Warranty and cheap,
Better than the WD green and Seagate drives and comparable with the WD black in performance.

With the price difference you could afford to replace the drive if it died after the warranty period and be no worse off.

With my 3TB versions I get using HDD tune I get 198.5 MB/s - 119.8 MB/s plus 11.4 Access time

My system is on 24/7 so had few restarts (26) so bare in mind it's not had many cold restarts. But the drives have been running for up to 11,673 hours so far. Used for steam/file storage and HTPC with my Quad Freeview Tuner.

So far so good. :)

Sound wise they don't seem loud I can't really hear them in my system, but they are mounted on silicon which does help with vibrations a lot.
 
I could be wrong but i think the best use of a hybrid drive is to store the operating system on the first partition (SSD) and everything else on the second partiton on the same hybrid hard drive. The SSD acts as a cache for data stored for improved overall performance.
 
I'd just have the couple of games that you are currently playing on the SSD and keep the other drive for storage. Unless you are shifting huge quantities between drives, I'd take a little more quiet over a little more speed every day of the week. The WD digital Red 3tb is extremely quiet and I can heartily recommend it
 
Good points :)

However, I have just thought of another scenario :

I don't really need a secondary drive inside the PC for archiving - I have a 4tb external usb3/esata drive for that.

So, perhaps I could NOT put any secondary drive in and, instead, get rid of the Samsung 512Gb 850 Evo Pro and replace it with a 1Tb Samsung 850 Evo (MZ-75E1T0BW) - That would work out about the same cost as the Evo Pro + a secondary drive.

1Tb would be more than enough for me to store all my apps and games and any projects I am working on get archived to my external drive and the cloud when they finish anyway.

So, the question I would ask is : Is there a big difference in performance between the 512 850 Evo Pro and the 1Tb 850 Evo (Non-Pro model) ??

Waddya reckon folks ?
 
Unless you are an insane power user any current SSD is likely to be fast enough for normal use including high end gaming.

To be fair it's hard to see much difference between a Sata II and Sata III SSD in actual usage for the tasks you want it for.

All I say is check there are no known issues with a particular model and decide the length of warrantee you would like and the premium you'll pay for a longer one.

In you case the SanDisk Extreme PRO 960GB @ £299 with a 10 year warrantee is probably just as good as the Samsung.

Only you can decide if the extra features on the Samsung are worth the extra cost.
 
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