HDD Or SSHD?

[WorthMaster]

Is it better to get a 7200 rpm hard drive or a hybrid drive? I'm not getting an SSD because I need a lot of storage space, but I want something faster than a standard 5400 rpm HDD. Thanks.

 

[i7Baby]

Best combo is a SSD and a HDD

But of SSHD and HDD, if they are both 7200rpm and 64mb cache, the SSHD should be quicker at loading often used software.

 

[mcnumpty23]

hybrid

but what you normally do is get a ssd for the operating system and software and use your old mechanical drives for storage

you dont store loads of music,video,large files etc on the ssd

and if you have a few old mechanical drives and your version of windows has storage spaces then you can put old drives to good use

 

[WorthMaster]

I'd rather just have one drive. Out of a 2tb 7200 rpm with 8gb SSD SSHD or a 3tb 7200 rpm HDD, which is better?

 

[dudeman509]

I'd go with the WD Hybrid drives (128 GB SSD + large platters). One drive, but will split into two letters. Put the stuff you run often on the SSD part (OS, browser, frequently used programs).

The Seagate hybrids are mostly useless - they'll speed up Windows load times just a little bit, but the cache doesn't work that well and disk access is very, very slow. I was excited about getting one, turned out to be a waste of money. And they do NOT like getting hot, like most thinner laptops will do to a hard disk.

 

[WorthMaster]

I'm getting this for a desktop, and the WD one only comes in a 1tb variant.

 

[dudeman509]

In that case, the Seagate SSHD will speed boot times substantially (probably more with W8 than W7) over a regular 7200 disk. Don't expect SSD speeds, but it will be significantly better than a traditional spinning disk at commonly used tasks and will get better as it "learns" your frequently accessed files. It reduced my boot time in a Windows 7 laptop from ~2.5 minutes to 25 seconds. For uncommonly used files or large copy speeds, it was slower than the 7200 RPM drive.

Seagate's laptop and desktop drives have had quite a few reliability issues as of late though...my SSHD laptop one was replaced 2 months in (fine now), and brother's desktop Barracuda is making noises after <1 year.

If you are looking for both reliability and speed, look into a Seagate Constellation, WD Black (sometimes iffy as well - seems to depend on the model or batch of drives), or HGST Ultrastar. The consumer-level drives these days seem to be hit or miss; these enterprise drives are built to run 24/7 and do it reliably.

 

[i7Baby]

I'd rather just have one drive. Out of a 2tb 7200 rpm with 8gb SSD SSHD or a 3tb 7200 rpm HDD, which is better?

The SSHD