TB or 4TB Seagate Hard Drives?

[RealitySpeaks]

I would like to get two HDDs for my Video Editing/Projects. I plan on using 1 for holding all the recordings I get off of FRAPs Screen Recorder and my Elgato Game Capture software. The 2nd HDD will hold all my renderings, edits in progress, and other projects. I'm also debating on whether i'll get another separate drive for games and downloads and misc. files. Which should I choose? The 3TB Seagate runs at 7200RPM and the 4TB runs at 5900RPM. Is speed the key? Or is storage more important?

 

[nukemaster]

IF the drive is dedicated to JUST recording, a slower spindle speed will not be much of an issue, but if the drive is doing anything else or gets fragmented the faster speed can help for sure.

Some of the larger drives use bigger faster platters now as well, but I think ALL of Seagate's new stuff uses the same 1tb/platter setup for FAST sequential reading/writing.

An SSD is also an option if frame drops are 100% unacceptable, but you will wear it down faster with so much writing.

I am not sure if your Game Capture card makes files as big as fraps, but that is why fraps needs such good access times and decent speed while something that records in mpeg4(preferably hardware based) or other compressed formats gets by with MUCH less.

I had done a quick 10 min recording in saints to to a WDC red that was in another computer over the network and it seemed to work out rather well, but this was a short video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWdZloPkCrg

 

[RealitySpeaks]

IF the drive is dedicated to JUST recording, a slower spindle speed will not be much of an issue, but if the drive is doing anything else or gets fragmented the faster speed can help for sure.

Some of the larger drives use bigger faster platters now as well, but I think ALL of Seagate's new stuff uses the same 1tb/platter setup for FAST sequential reading/writing.

An SSD is also an option if frame drops are 100% unacceptable, but you will wear it down faster with so much writing.

I am not sure if your Game Capture card makes files as big as fraps, but that is why fraps needs such good access times and decent speed while something that records in mpeg4(preferably hardware based) or other compressed formats gets by with MUCH less.

I had done a quick 10 min recording in saints to to a WDC red that was in another computer over the network and it seemed to work out rather well, but this was a short video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWdZloPkCrg

So should I go for a combo approach where I get something that writes faster such as the 3TB Seagate 7200RPM to FRAPs and Screen record on, and then use the slower 4TB Seagate 5900RPM to render off on? I'm considering getting two of the 3TB drives, as I can always move files between the two, but the 2 extra TB of space can really come in handy.

 

[nukemaster]

I would go for a multi drive system for sure. When you are compressing and editing it is an advantage to have an input(recording) drive and an output drive.

Leave windows and games on a dedicated drive if you can as well(if not leave Windows and output together). It would suck to drop a frame because something in Windows starts to make too much use of the drive or a game tries to load more textures.

Keep the recording drive clean and defragmented(unless it is an SSD, you do not defrag those) so the drive head can just write sequentially and not have to make large jumps. When you are editing, this kind of thing is not much of an issue, but for real time capture it can help.

 

[RealitySpeaks]

I would go for a multi drive system for sure. When you are compressing and editing it is an advantage to have an input(recording) drive and an output drive.

Leave windows and games on a dedicated drive if you can as well(if not leave Windows and output together). It would suck to drop a frame because something in Windows starts to make too much use of the drive or a game tries to load more textures.

Keep the recording drive clean and defragmented(unless it is an SSD, you do not defrag those) so the drive head can just write sequentially and not have to make large jumps. When you are editing, this kind of thing is not much of an issue, but for real time capture it can help.

I plan on using 1 SSD for my OS, and then use the two other drives to work on what i've stated above. I can always grab a 3rd drive to put all my games and downloads and such on it, but i'm still confused about which drive I should get. There are pros and cons to the 3TB and 4TB drives... The 3TB drives have a faster write rate, but the 4TB drive is only 10-20$ more expensive for another 1TB of storage... But a slower write speed. Which do you recommend I get 3 of?

 

[RealitySpeaks]

I would go for a multi drive system for sure. When you are compressing and editing it is an advantage to have an input(recording) drive and an output drive.

Leave windows and games on a dedicated drive if you can as well(if not leave Windows and output together). It would suck to drop a frame because something in Windows starts to make too much use of the drive or a game tries to load more textures.

Keep the recording drive clean and defragmented(unless it is an SSD, you do not defrag those) so the drive head can just write sequentially and not have to make large jumps. When you are editing, this kind of thing is not much of an issue, but for real time capture it can help.

I plan on using 1 SSD for my OS, and then use the two other drives to work on what i've stated above. I can always grab a 3rd drive to put all my games and downloads and such on it, but i'm still confused about which drive I should get. There are pros and cons to the 3TB and 4TB drives... The 3TB drives have a faster write rate, but the 4TB drive is only 10-20$ more expensive for another 1TB of storage... But a slower write speed. Which do you recommend I get 3 of?

 

[nukemaster]

I do not think it will make much of a difference for what you are doing.

Just keep the recording drive as a recording only(no games/programs) drive and it should be ok.

Also note that the higher resolution you go the larger the file. Mine was 1920 x 1200 and took about 2.6 gigabytes per minute.

 

[RealitySpeaks]

I do not think it will make much of a difference for what you are doing.

Just keep the recording drive as a recording only(no games/programs) drive and it should be ok.

Also note that the higher resolution you go the larger the file. Mine was 1920 x 1200 and took about 2.6 gigabytes per minute.

So i'll probably go with the 4TB hard drives then... I mean, if I buy 3, thats 3TB extra for 30$, so thats not too bad. I'm still weary about the performance of them compared to the 3TB versions though. And yeah, I do plan on using all 3 to handle different tasks. If you don't mind me asking, which drives would you personally go with if you were in my situation?

 

[nukemaster]

Western Digital Blacks(they are older than the new Seagates, but I have some and they work well), but they cost more.

It may be worth hitting up storage review to compare drives. They have too many drives I have not used.
http://www.storagereview.com/

 

[RealitySpeaks]

Western Digital Blacks(they are older than the new Seagates, but I have some and they work well), but they cost more.

It may be worth hitting up storage review to compare drives. They have too many drives I have not used.
http://www.storagereview.com/

How are the WD 4TBs? I'm curious because i've been recommended them before, but have been told that their failure rate is higher than the new Seagates.

 

[nukemaster]

The new Seagates are almost too new to have shown how the failure rate is.

I have seen failures from both companies. most times it is back luck. I know Seagate did have a run of bad drives a while back. It kind of sucked since I had some of them. The replacements are re-certified as well.

The largest WDC Black I personally own is 2TB. It worked quite well, but was a bit loud(everything is loud when you get used to ssds. it was not insanely loud, just louder than some other drives.)

 

[RealitySpeaks]

The new Seagates are almost too new to have shown how the failure rate is.

I have seen failures from both companies. most times it is back luck. I know Seagate did have a run of bad drives a while back. It kind of sucked since I had some of them. The replacements are re-certified as well.

The largest WDC Black I personally own is 2TB. It worked quite well, but was a bit loud(everything is loud when you get used to ssds. it was not insanely loud, just louder than some other drives.)

It's such a hard choice for me, I get split answers between the 3TB 7200s and the 4TB 5900s. Some say that there will hardly be a difference, some say that I should use the 7200RPM drive because it will write games I capture live off of my console better w/o lag, some say that speed is negligent and I should go for the beefiest drives I can get...