One 4TB Hard Drive or Two 2TB Hard Drives

[saljaimes]

I currently have a gaming pc I built with only a 240 SSD. I want to add some storage space, but I am not sure if I should go with a 3/1TB HDD setup or a 2/2TB setup or a 1/4TB setup. There is currently a 4TB Seagate HDD with a lower RPM at $119 after mail-in-rebate, so the price is right, but I am not sure which setup would be more efficient. Any thoughts?

After getting some feedback from all of you, I decided to go with a 4TB HDD primarily because I found one online for $89 after a discount, a special promotion, and a mail-in-rebate. You cannot beat that! I am going to stress the heck out of it for the next six months to see if It will hold. I also have an external 2TB I will use to backup everything until I am comfortable with using the 4TB long term. Best advice I have received so far: always backup your data; backup your backup if possible. Thank you all for your help.

 

[Brighttail]

Honestly all will work. The more drives you have the higher the chance one of them will fail, but at the same time if one fails then you stil have two that has backups. I would like to offer a better solution. Get something like a 2TB drive and then get a 2TB EXTERNAL drive that you can save backups of your files/system to. it will be about the same price and you have the added protection of having a backup drive incase your system is compromised or something fails.

 

[tyflikw]

I'm personally a fan of multiple hard drives, largely for the backup capability of important files.

 

[lava1789]

Honestly all will work. The more drives you have the higher the chance one of them will fail, ....

Pardon me, but how's that?
Doesn't each drive has its own life?
How does life of 1 drive depend on other if connected? Or how connecting more drives reduces the life of others?
Please explain.

 

[Super_Nova]

I would go for the larger single drive. You can always add another drive later.

 

[Brighttail]

It is the law of averages, the more components you have the higher chance that one of them will fail, not that it would affect you negatively per se, it is just the law of averages. So unless you have them set up in a RAID format, it shouldn't impact you. Sorry for the confusion as I was being geeky.

All that being said. I'm a fan of usually two smaller drives instead of one large one. I would still also suggest you consider an external if you don't already have one. I had a power surge and the only thing that saved my data was the external one i had that wasn't affected when the motherboard arced.

 

[saljaimes]

Honestly all will work. The more drives you have the higher the chance one of them will fail, but at the same time if one fails then you stil have two that has backups. I would like to offer a better solution. Get something like a 2TB drive and then get a 2TB EXTERNAL drive that you can save backups of your files/system to. it will be about the same price and you have the added protection of having a backup drive incase your system is compromised or something fails.

I like the idea of a 2TB Internal and a 2TB external for backup. Thank you for the idea.

 

[Brighttail]

No problem and good luck! I might suggest for the main HDD WD black. Strong, reliable, 5 year warranty.. yes a bit more expensive but worth it.

 

[Paperdoc]

There's a technical limitation you have not considered. Assuming you're using a Windows OS more recent than XP, you can use an HDD over 2 TB, BUT only if you are running a 64-bit version of Windows. Microsoft has only supplied drivers for HDD units that are Partitioned using the GPT system for its 64-bit Windows versions. I assume that, if you had a 4 TB unit, you would want to use all that space, not just half. So you would be forced to use GPT partitioning, not MBR. And that means you would HAVE to be using a 64-bit Windows. But many gamers have not installed that - they are using a 32-bit version of Windows. What are you using?

 

[saljaimes]

There's a technical limitation you have not considered. Assuming you're using a Windows OS more recent than XP, you can use an HDD over 2 TB, BUT only if you are running a 64-bit version of Windows. Microsoft has only supplied drivers for HDD units that are Partitioned using the GPT system for its 64-bit Windows versions. I assume that, if you had a 4 TB unit, you would want to use all that space, not just half. So you would be forced to use GPT partitioning, not MBR. And that means you would HAVE to be using a 64-bit Windows. But many gamers have not installed that - they are using a 32-bit version of Windows. What are you using?

I am using Windows 8 Ultimate 64-bit OS. Thank you for the information on partitioning techniques.