Should I buy a 4TB SSHD or a 4TB HDD + 120GB SSD?

[bifutake]

These are the two options I'm considering:

1. HDD WD WD40E31X SSHD ~ $205 in my local store.

2. HDD WD Caviar Blue 4TB SATA 3 WD40EZRZ ($165) with SSD 120GB Samsung 850 Evo bulk, SATA3, MZ-75E120B ($75) for a total of $240. Maybe I'll have to buy a 3,5" bracket as well ($5).

So, it's $205 vs. $245.


The first option is obviously a bit cheaper and it comes with a 3-year warranty (regular HDD in the second option provides only 2 years but the specified SSD comes with a 5-year warranty). Since I occasionally play PC games (my favorite 3 are multiplayer-oriented), I imagine that the SSHD would also give me a slight advantage in that regard.

The second option would give me faster OS loading and processing (I'd use the SSD as my C-partition) but my Steam folder would have to be located on my HDD (due to the lack of storage room on the SSD).


Can anyone help me decide? Are SSHD's worth buying?

 

[Anarkie13]

I wouldn't go with either. The mechanical speed of those drives is 5400 RPM, which is better suited to storage and laptops only.

Seeing you mention Steam means gaming. Gaming on a 5400 RPM drive, Hybrid or not, is a terrible idea. Get a good 7200 RPM drive minimum.

The WD Black series goes up to 5 or 6TB with 7200 RPM. I can get a 5TB version for just over $200 on Newegg. I'd suggest a 240+GB SSD for boot and 2-4 demanding games, if you want the absolute best performance, and then the rest on a 7200RPM drive.

 

[Rogue Leader]

SSHD's are overrated. You will get a few opinions here about how great they are but in the end you get a slower 5900 rpm HDD with about 8GB of SSD "Cache" space which pulls in parts of most used files. So some stuff will work great, most, not so much.

Get the SSD for your OS, and a 7200rpm hard drive, that will give you the best overall performance by far. 4TB is a huge amount of space if you're only an occasional gamer, drop it to 2TB to save a few bucks and get yourself 7200rpm over a 5900rpm drive.

 

[das_stig]

SSHD are great for general office system, got one in my new works laptop and you can see the differnce to just using a HDD.

For gamers, the biggest SSD from a leading brand and a good HDD with 64MB cache and 7200rpm, or as mentioned, a WD Black.

 

[bifutake]

@Anarkie13: Newegg doesn't deliver to my country. WD Black 4TB costs $260 at the cheapest store in my city. That's too expensive for me right now. Especially if I were to buy an SSD as well.

@Rogue Leader: I already have my mind set to a 4TB drive because I need the storage room for some other stuff (movies, series, documentaries). 2TB is not enough. I want to have some breathing space for the next couple of years.

@everyone: What's your opinion on the Seagate Desktop SSHD 4TB (link1, link2)? It's a 7200 rpm hybrid drive with a 3-year warranty and it's much more affordable at my local store ($180) than the equivalent WD Black series ($260). It's also way cheaper than a 5400 rpm HDD 4TB + SSD 120GB combo ($245). And it's also cheaper than the WD's SSHD, mentioned in my opening post ($205).

It would definitely be a massive improvement over my current setup (a 6-year old WD Blue 640GB @ 5400 rpm). Should I go for it?


Edit: SSD's are still too expensive for my taste. I think I'll hold off on purchasing one for at least a couple of years, when they drop in price and jump in available storage room.

 

[Rogue Leader]

Definitely massive improvement. I personally like Seagate and have never had a problem. 7200rpm is far preferred.

 

[Anarkie13]

I'd stick with a straight 7200 RPM HDD if anything. It seems the controllers for the hybrids are a bit too unstable still from the reviews I've seen (WD or Seagate). Many of them don't last and reviews are very mixed. A reliable 7200 RPM 4TB drive is better and you can always add an SSD later.

If you really want to increase performance, see if you can't set up 2 2TB 7200 RPM HDDs in a RAID configuration. You'll have to see if your motherboard has a RAID controller onboard, and how to set it up.

 

[bifutake]

Just a little update... I chose to cough up a bit more money so I went for my first ever SSD (250GB Samsung 850 EVO Basic, Bulk - $110) and a 7200 RPM HDD (WD Black 4TB - $265). So far so good. My OS boots so damn fast now! As far as gaming goes, I'll have to do some more testing.

Thanks, everyone! I'm not sure which answer I should pick for a solution, though, so I'll just leave it blank. Hope it doesn't offend any of you. I really do appreciate your help.

 

[popatim]

Picked one for you. Since not all SSH'd are 5900rpm drives I went with went with Das-Stig's instead of Rogue_Leaders but cudo's are deserved by both!