Best Hard Disk Sata 3 below $100

[varthshenon]

I have 260GB Hitachi Hard Disk that give me a S.M.A.R.T error. Also it make lag when I recording game using fraps. I'm sure it's caused by the Hard Disk, something weird happen to it. The write and read rate is a hell low.

Well, any suggestion for my new Hard Disk? Or maybe all Hard Disks are the same?

 

[WyomingKnott]

In my humble experience, all hard disks are the same except for the infamous Seagate 7200.11 series.

SATA III or SATA II will make absolutely no difference in your performance - they are compatible, and no HDD can saturate an SATA II link.

Hard drives are awfully expensive due to floods that knocked out a significant amount of the production. You might consider buying used from someone you trust. Or, to pick one at random, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136769

 

[game junky]

How much storage do you actually need? A SATAII SSD w/ a sandforce controller will give you exponentially more speed than a standard HDD.

Here's a 120GB on a deep discount for $140:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820171545

I wouldn't get an OCZ because I have had serious issues with Intel RST drivers and the firmware bricking the drive. Intel & Crucial are very reliable. Here's is Crucial's 64GB drive for $95:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148441

If you do want to stick with a standard platter drive, you're going to pay a premium because of the current HDD market pricing. I personally prefer WD for platter drives but they all have their lemons so I would just go with price and the consistency of ratings.

 

[inzone]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136358

With hard drive prices high this is what you can get for under $100 and the Western Digital brand has a great reputation.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148725

If you want a large drive then you could try this one.

 

[varthshenon]

Wait a minute, there's no different between Sata2 and Sata3?

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/275725-32-sata-sata
It said they are different

 

[rolli59]

Wait a minute, there's no different between Sata2 and Sata3?

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/275725-32-sata-sata
It said they are different

The interfaces have different transfer rates true! No mechanical hard drive SATA II or III can max out the transfer rate of the SATA II interface, therefore does not matter much on HDD but does on SSD which can utilize the higher rates of the SATA III interface.

 

[game junky]

I agree with Rolli - only difference is the transfer speed. You will also need cables rated for Sata 6g/s - main difference in cables is they have a locking clip on the SATA 6g/s.

Otherwise, power and connection cable size is identical.

 

[inzone]

The sata 3 hdd's are faster than sata2 but because they can't max out the sata 2 interface it doesn't matter which sata port you connect to and I do think that was what he was refering to. It does matter with a SSD because the new Sata 3 SSD's can max out the sata 2 interface and need to be connected to the sata 3 ports to utilize thier full potencial.

 

[Soda-88]

if you're gonna be buying an ssd, i'd strongly advise you against frapsing onto it, you'll kill available p/e cycles in a year if you're going to heavily fraps on it

 

[varthshenon]

The sata 3 hdd's are faster than sata2 but because they can't max out the sata 2 interface it doesn't matter which sata port you connect to and I do think that was what he was refering to. It does matter with a SSD because the new Sata 3 SSD's can max out the sata 2 interface and need to be connected to the sata 3 ports to utilize thier full potencial.

So, it's better to get medium sized HD and small sized SSD?

if you're gonna be buying an ssd, i'd strongly advise you against frapsing onto it, you'll kill available p/e cycles in a year if you're going to heavily fraps on it

I don't get it . Can you explain more? Thanks.

And yes my main reason to get a new storage is to be able to use fraps.

 

[inzone]

To have a small SSD maybe 64gb to 90 gb and a medium size hdd would be a good setup , you get the speed of a SSD with the OS on it and the storage capacity of a larger hdd. A medium size hdd would be 500gb to 1tb.

 

[Soda-88]

I don't get it . Can you explain more? Thanks.

And yes my main reason to get a new storage is to be able to use fraps.

MLC based SSDs have between 5000 and 10000 program/erase (write/erase basically) cycles for each cell before they go bad (cannot be erased, and if you can't erase, you can't write new data in a cell)

and as you might know, fraps uses very high bitrate lossy encoder which tends to take up alot of space in a very short time, depending on the resolution and frame rate you're frapsing at

since SSDs are relatively small in capacity, you'd end up filling up, say 120gb SSD in an hour of frapsing (usually how it is for me; 4gb every ~2mins)

so with some simple math, it'd take 5000-10000 hours of frapsing to degrade the 120gb SSD into a useless read-only rubble

so once again, NEVER fraps on an SSD

To have a small SSD maybe 64gb to 90 gb and a medium size hdd would be a good setup , you get the speed of a SSD with the OS on it and the storage capacity of a larger hdd. A medium size hdd would be 500gb to 1tb.

also, this

i've got 60gb SSD, 2x640gb HDDs in RAID0 and 2 storage HDDs (1+2gb); OS, everyday usage apps and couple of most frequently played games on SSD, rest of apps/games and fraps on RAID0, and storage drives for well... storage

works pretty damn good

 

[inzone]

Better off using the in-game fps counter.

 

[Soda-88]

Better off using the in-game fps counter.

not sure what you mean by that, frapsing means recording gameplay footage in real time in a poorly compressed avi format which eats up alot of space

back on topic:
forgot to mention you should get 7200rpm HDD for smooth frapsing, 5400rpm green drives have a tendency to slow down randomly below the bandwidth necessary to have a smooth video footage especially on higher resolutions (above 720p)