Question Internal HDD for gaming

[Guest_1]

Okay, so it's been a while since I bought an internal HDD (last time was 2010, I think). I've been playing my games from an SSD up until now but games are getting too big and larger SSDs are still too expensive.

Anyway, I decided to buy a 4TB internal HDD for gaming and I thought it would be easy like the old days, just check the RPM and cache and get the brand you want. But after some research I found that the HDD scene has become quite complicated lately especially since manufacturers like Seagate have chosen to obscure the RPM of their drives. Seagate Barracuda also comes in two versions one of which has 64MB cache while the other has 256MB.

I considered the drives usually recommended for gaming, the Toshiba X300 and the WD Black but the reviews for Toshiba X300 are the stuff of nightmares and the WD Black is definitely out of my price range. I have narrowed my options down to either a Seagate Barracuda or WD Blue, none of which come with a 7200 rpm speed.

So, I guess my questions are:

1. Why aren't mainstream 4 TB HDDs available in 7200 rpm? Does RPM just not matter as much anymore due to aerial density and other stuff?
2. Why would manufacturers choose to conceal the RPM rating of their drives?
3. How much does HDD cache matter for gaming? Will I see a noticeable difference in load times if I have a 256MB cache on my HDD vs a 64MB cache?
4. Can I get some comparison benchmarks for 2019 models of 4 TB Seagate Barracuda (64MB & 256MB cache) and WD Blue so I can pick which drive to buy?
5. Why is Seagate Barracuda more expensive than the WD Blue when Seagate is generally considered the cheaper brand?
6. Do you have any other suggestions for a 4 TB drive that'll fit in my budget ($ 90 to 120, slightly flexible)?

 

[WreckerALeX]

I'm not sure where you're getting that, I have a 14tb 7200rpm 256mb cache as storage. Did you try pcpartpicker? they don't show all but they have a lot and can be sorted in gb/$

I have 2tb nvme ssd and fiber gig internet but loading quick in games like Rainbow Six Siege is irrelevant because you have to wait for slow loaders anyways.

 

[AllanGH]

For your consideration:
https://www.amazon.com/product/dp/B00XUDJXUW/

 

[geofelt]

Large capacity HDD devices are built for storage, not for performance.

If you have a motherboard that is optane capable, buy a 16/32 gb optane m.2 device.
It can be used as a cache for a HDD.

Larger HDD cache might help, but really, not so much.
The data transfer to/from the cache is fast, but ultimately HDD devices are limited by mechanical limitations.

 

[captaincharisma]

the bigger the drive the more complex it is so it requires more resources to put out a drive like a 4TB+ drive with 7200RPM that can be stable and not have a high failure rate which is why you only see the premium drives like WD black 4TB drives at 7200RPM

4TB is a waste anyway for just a few games. you would be better off going for some cheap 1TB SSD drive's which would have speeds superior to any 7200 or even 10000RPM HDD

 

[AllanGH]

...or even 1000RPM HDD

I thought that they stopped making those back in the 60's....

 

[failboat]

If you go with seagate don't buy the barracuda. It's a SMR drive. SMRs only upside is price some of them can be found for $16/TB. @ $25/TB you can find other drives.

4TB drives don't have much competition anymore. people who want bulk storage are upgrading to 8 or more. there won't be a bunch of great options to pick from. less than 4 is even worse now that ssd prices have fallen. WD black or barracuda pro might be worth looking at. a 5400 RPM drive will work fine if you want to save a few $ but don't go the SMR route.

 

[popatim]

Your choices then are limited to the Ironwold Pro or the Red Pro. Not as cheap as an X300 or as expensive as a WD Black and sill used PMR & 7200 RPM technology. I've got two 4TB Blues in my server and no issues in the past year and half with them in my server. They replaced two Toshiba's for that matter. LOL

One of my customers went with four of the 4TB 256mb Seagate barracudas , more recently then me getting the WD's, and has already replaced all 4 of them over the past year. He may have gotten them shortly after they came out, I remember i was watching the price on them myself.

 

[Guest_1]

Your choices then are limited to the Ironwold Pro or the Red Pro. Not as cheap as an X300 or as expensive as a WD Black and sill used PMR & 7200 RPM technology. I've got two 4TB Blues in my server and no issues in the past year and half with them in my server. They replaced two Toshiba's for that matter. LOL

One of my customers went with four of the 4TB 256mb Seagate barracudas , more recently then me getting the WD's, and has already replaced all 4 of them over the past year. He may have gotten them shortly after they came out, I remember i was watching the price on them myself.

Ironwolf Pro is a little out of my price range, and it isn't built for what I want to do so I don't wanna go that route.

According to Seagate's Spec Sheet, their drives are now based on TGMR recording technology. I can't find much information on TGMR, does it have the same drawbacks as SMR? On a related note, which recording technology do WD Blue 4TB drives use?

The real problem with WD Blues is that they're just re-branded WD Greens which have a very aggressive head parking mechanism reducing the life span of the drive. And wdidle3 doesn't work on the new Blues.

 

[Endre]

I wouldn’t go on that way though! Buying HDDs in 2019 is like washing clothes manually! 😄
It’s just old technology.
I’d rather save some money for a few months and buy a small NVMe PCIe SSD as boot drive, and a bigger SATA3 based SSD for storage.

 

[AllanGH]

It’s just old technology.

Which happens to be a better solution for back-up purposes.

Don't try maintaining long-term back-ups on SSDs. The data won't be there when you go back for it in a couple of years.

HDDs aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

 

[Endre]

Which happens to be a better solution for back-up purposes.

Don't try maintaining long-term back-ups on SSDs. The data won't be there when you go back for it in a couple of years.

HDDs aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

Why do you think so?
I’ve got my 240GB Kingston SATA based SSD filled with photos and personal stuff, which I bought in 2013, and it still has all the files on it today!

 

[popatim]

SSD's need to be powered Periodically to 'hold' the cells state (data) in a steady state otherwise they begin to corrupt. How soon they corrupt depends on the technology the drive uses but in all cases it is much shorter then an HDD.

 

[AllanGH]

Sorry...my wife had physician appointments and wanted to do some shopping after.....but, yeah, exactly what popatim said.

 

[alceryes]

4TB is a waste anyway for just a few games. you would be better off going for some cheap 1TB SSD drive's which would have speeds superior to any 7200 or even 10000RPM HDD

^This.
Even cheap SSDs are leaps and bounds faster than performance spindle drives. What games are you playing that you need 4TB? Most large games top out at ~50GBs of space.

 

[Endre]

SSD's need to be powered Periodically to 'hold' the cells state (data) in a steady state otherwise they begin to corrupt. How soon they corrupt depends on the technology the drive uses but in all cases it is much shorter then an HDD.

What do you mean by “powered periodically”?
My SSDs are inside the PC, so they are being powered daily, and optimized by Windows weekly.
Are you talking about keeping the SSD in a closet? Because nobody does that, especially with a high speed SSD!

 

[Guest_1]

^This.
Even cheap SSDs are leaps and bounds faster than performance spindle drives. What games are you playing that you need 4TB? Most large games top out at ~50GBs of space.

I like to keep all my favourite games installed so I can play any game whenever I want.

As an example, just my Skyrim SE with mods is over a 100 GB, a 1TB SSD is just not going to be enough.

 

[digitalgriffin]

Okay, so it's been a while since I bought an internal HDD (last time was 2010, I think). I've been playing my games from an SSD up until now but games are getting too big and larger SSDs are still too expensive.

Anyway, I decided to buy a 4TB internal HDD for gaming and I thought it would be easy like the old days, just check the RPM and cache and get the brand you want. But after some research I found that the HDD scene has become quite complicated lately especially since manufacturers like Seagate have chosen to obscure the RPM of their drives. Seagate Barracuda also comes in two versions one of which has 64MB cache while the other has 256MB.

I considered the drives usually recommended for gaming, the Toshiba X300 and the WD Black but the reviews for Toshiba X300 are the stuff of nightmares and the WD Black is definitely out of my price range. I have narrowed my options down to either a Seagate Barracuda or WD Blue, none of which come with a 7200 rpm speed.

So, I guess my questions are:

1. Why aren't mainstream 4 TB HDDs available in 7200 rpm? Does RPM just not matter as much anymore due to aerial density and other stuff?
2. Why would manufacturers choose to conceal the RPM rating of their drives?
3. How much does HDD cache matter for gaming? Will I see a noticeable difference in load times if I have a 256MB cache on my HDD vs a 64MB cache?
4. Can I get some comparison benchmarks for 2019 models of 4 TB Seagate Barracuda (64MB & 256MB cache) and WD Blue so I can pick which drive to buy?
5. Why is Seagate Barracuda more expensive than the WD Blue when Seagate is generally considered the cheaper brand?
6. Do you have any other suggestions for a 4 TB drive that'll fit in my budget ($ 90 to 120, slightly flexible)?

To achieve ever higher bit densities, read/write speeds needed to be slowed down. If you think they are bad now, you should see Shingled write drives.

IF you have a B450/X470/X570 chipset you should be able to use StoreMi for free. If you have Intel you can use their smart cache (Smart Response) from Z68 chipsets and up. What this will do is take your most commonly used game files and write those to the SSD. So your more recent games will read/write faster.

To be honest though, RPM speed isn't a huge factor as it used to be unless you are doing large sequential reads/writes (ie: Streaming/Raw Data access). In fact, HDD sequential access is sometimes considerably faster than SSD when SSD SLC cache runs out. I've seen QLC NVMe drives slow to 20MBps when full and HDD sequential write 80MBps->100MBps. HDD Random access is much more a detriment to performance because head movements are slow in comparison.

 

[digitalgriffin]

SSD's need to be powered Periodically to 'hold' the cells state (data) in a steady state otherwise they begin to corrupt. How soon they corrupt depends on the technology the drive uses but in all cases it is much shorter then an HDD.

I will admit, this is the first I heard of this.

However if a "cell" needs to periodically be "refreshed" that implies the cells are losing electrons and a zero clear and rewrite will be needed. You can't just add electrons to "refresh" a cell. A complete write would have to happen.

If there is any drive that rewrites cells to refresh them, I certainly never heard of it. Do you have an official white paper on the problem?

Now do I believe SSD NAND cells lose electrons over time? Yes. But I would hazard to say its likely years if not decades. But that's a guess on my part based on the fact some OS File NAND cells don't get overwritten ever.

 

[alceryes]

Cells will, over time, lose their data -- SLOWLY.
Although it's several years old, here's a good article discussing the 'unplugged death' - https://www.extremetech.com/computing/205382-ssds-can-lose-data-in-as-little-as-7-days-without-power

I haven't found any newer articles but didn't look much. I know that NAND technology has gotten better over the last 5 years and would bet that these times have gotten better too. So, in short, at normal room temperatures, you shouldn't worry about an SSD sitting on the shelf for a year. SSDs don't make good archival storage but otherwise I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[Endre]

Cells will, over time, lose their data -- SLOWLY.
Although it's several years old, here's a good article discussing the 'unplugged death' - https://www.extremetech.com/computing/205382-ssds-can-lose-data-in-as-little-as-7-days-without-power

I haven't found any newer articles but didn't look much. I know that NAND technology has gotten better over the last 5 years and would bet that these times have gotten better too. So, in short, at normal room temperatures, you shouldn't worry about an SSD sitting on the shelf for a year. SSDs don't make good archival storage but otherwise I wouldn't worry about it.

Come on!
Who spends money on an NVMe SSD to keep it unused, on a shelf?
It will be, most of the times, used as the “C partition” where the OS is!

 

[popatim]

Cells will, over time, lose their data -- SLOWLY.
Although it's several years old, here's a good article discussing the 'unplugged death' - https://www.extremetech.com/computing/205382-ssds-can-lose-data-in-as-little-as-7-days-without-power

I haven't found any newer articles but didn't look much. I know that NAND technology has gotten better over the last 5 years and would bet that these times have gotten better too. So, in short, at normal room temperatures, you shouldn't worry about an SSD sitting on the shelf for a year. SSDs don't make good archival storage but otherwise I wouldn't worry about it.

Actually the issue is compounded with more data being crammed into smaller spaces.

 

[alceryes]

Not too sure about that. I think power-off data retention has gotten better due to better manufacturing processes, regardless of more data being crammed into a smaller space.

Found this article - https://www.pcworld.com/article/292...nt-lose-data-if-left-unplugged-after-all.html

It sheds some light on the previous article that everyone, including myself, has referenced. The original article was testing drives that are PAST their end-of-life DWPD or TBW.


TL: DR for this whole thread - If you want to keep your data for archival purposes (5+ years) don't just keep an SSD on a shelf. Otherwise, there's nothing to worry about.

 

[Guest_1]

TL: DR for this whole thread - If you want to keep your data for archival purposes (5+ years) don't just keep an SSD on a shelf. Otherwise, there's nothing to worry about.

Well. This thread got hijacked.

 

[alceryes]

Well. This thread got hijacked.

Apologies. You're right. For some reason I combines a couple threads in my head and called it case closed.

Anywho. To answer your questions -

1. Why aren't mainstream 4 TB HDDs available in 7200 rpm? Does RPM just not matter as much anymore due to aerial density and other stuff? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------4TB 7200 RPM drives exist. The 'mainstream' terminology may have a different meaning with HDDs now, with SSDs being so prevalent. Look for 'performance' HDDs. I have a Toshiba X300 5TB 7200RPM and it's plenty quick enough for a secondary data drive. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Why would manufacturers choose to conceal the RPM rating of their drives? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Not 100% sure about this one but I would guess it's because people still look for the drive RPM as the performance metric standard. If it's less than 7200 RPM they bury it on page 3 under the staple. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. How much does HDD cache matter for gaming? Will I see a noticeable difference in load times if I have a 256MB cache on my HDD vs a 64MB cache? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HDD cache affects small reads mostly and helps drives multitask better. It does make a difference as an OS drive as Windows is constantly reading small files. It won't have much affect on the 'loading times' in games. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Can I get some comparison benchmarks for 2019 models of 4 TB Seagate Barracuda (64MB & 256MB cache) and WD Blue so I can pick which drive to buy? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You're gonna have to do some HDD performance review searches to find this. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. Why is Seagate Barracuda more expensive than the WD Blue when Seagate is generally considered the cheaper brand? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It would depend on the specs of the drive - Capacity, RPM speed, and cache play a larger part in pricing than brand name. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6. Do you have any other suggestions for a 4 TB drive that'll fit in my budget ($ 90 to 120, slightly flexible)? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Check out the Toshiba X300s. Mine has been perfect since I got it.