6 replies to this topic

[Robomoto]

I'm looking for some help finding a good brand of internal hard drive. I want a secondary one to use for game storage on my computer but I'm not sure which ones I should look at.

 

Here is are the relevant specs on my computer:

 

Windows 8.1

600W power supply.

 

I'm looking for at least 2 TB, but I might get more if there is a sale on it for a good price. Any advice would be appreciated.

[Sidewinder]

I've always had good luck with Western Digital. Are you playing games off of it? If you are, I highly recommend getting an SSD instead (http://www.newegg.co...8485&IsNodeId=1). You won't have as much space, but you will have much faster reads and writes.

Otherwise, you could go with a WD green or black: http://www.newegg.co...003300 50001306

[nosoop]

I think it's worth noting that you might want to consider multiple single platter HDDs so there are fewer parts and fewer potential sources of error.  (Not sure if things have changed in the last couple of years, though.)

 

I also recommend either a WD Blue (all-around model; I've been using a 500GB one as my main drive for the last couple of years), or a WD Black (higher performance).  Here's an informational post on differences between the WD color variants.

 

I've had a poor experience with the one Seagate drive I tried using (click of death, dead on arrival), but that's my personal experience with one drive; take it with a grain of salt.

 

Regardless of what brand you get, you'll want a 3.5" drive that's at least 7200 RPM and using SATA 6, just in case you're not sure.

[Toamto]

I've had a poor experience with the one Seagate drive I tried using (click of death, dead on arrival), but that's my personal experience with one drive; take it with a grain of salt.

I can confirm that recently Seagate has had lower build quality and more mechanical failures as of recent years. I'd definitely recommend a WD drive.

[Neh]

WD Black or Blue. I'd suggest sticking with 1TB drives, for reasons nosoop mentioned.

 

Unless the drive is exclusively for archiving stuff you won't touch very often, don't get a green, it's much slower and has longer seek times.

Also, don't get an SSD for games. Outside of load times you will not get any performance increases and they cost ~five times as much as a similarly sized HDD. Just having the OS and game files on different drives will boost game performance adequately. I do highly recommend an SSD as a boot drive though, but that is another topic.

[Robomoto]

Thanks for the info guys, it has helped a lot. I think I have what I need to look for a good drive. Thanks again.

[granola]

If you want to save some money slickdeals occasionally has decent hard drive deals.