Question Seagate Barracuda 3TB, or 4TB?

[Anoraki]

I'm looking into buying a new HDD since my current one just died, it's a 2TB Black WD HDD. Based off of PcPartPicker, the Seagate Barracuda models seem to be the best deal with good reviews. Comparing the 3TB and the 4TB models, their prices are pretty much the same.

Yet, I looked at UserBenchmark, and it shows the 3TB as having faster R/W speeds, while the 4TB has faster random write speeds. Based on a couple forum posts, it sounds like random write is more important for gaming, which is what I'd use the HDD for. It seems like R/W speeds would also be important, though, as installing lots of large games is something that I would also be doing frequently.

TL;DR: Would I have a better experience with a 3TB HDD with faster R/W, or a 4TB HDD with faster random write?

 

[Lutfij]

I've been saying this for almost 3 years, Userbench should be culled out of existence. It only leads people to the wrong avenue. I would ask you to pick up the drive that fits your budget, your needs and has overall positive reviews of people who have owned them. I've personally moved away from WD drives due to them having high failure rates in spite of nominal usage.

 

[seagate_surfer]

Hello OP, here you can check out the data sheets and manual of those drives. If you have any questions, please ask.

 

[mdd1963]

It seemed when I reviewed failure rates of assorted drives a few years back, 3 TB drives from a few manufacturers seemed to be near the top of these failure rate lists...

My own 4 TB HGST is a 7200 rpm drive, consistently scoring about ~160 MB/sec on Crystal DIskMark sequential reads/writes in it's current 10% full condition....