WD Black or WD Blue + ram

[OneLegacy]

I want 2 TB of HDD (going to install loads of games/music/videos)
Should I go with a 2 TB Western Digital Black (118.99$) or 2 1 TB Western Digital Blues (105.98$) I heard the black had better performance but I'm not sure if it's even that big of a noteable difference. Let me know what you think.

Also, quick question
is a Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
sufficient for gaming? (Read through some reviews of it and most people either loved it or hated it, is it a low end ram or is it sufficient for gaming?)

Thanks!

 

[MarkW]

WD Black are fast (for a hard drive anyways). And they have a 5 year warranty.
WD Blue are not as fast. And they have a 2 year warranty.
I would be willing to pay the extra $13.01 for an extra 3 year warranty alone. But in this case, the black is 7200 RPM, and the blue, I think is 5900 RPM. WD goes out of their way not to actually tell us the RPM numbers anymore.

As for memory...
1600 speed with CL 9 or lower will be fine.
1866 speed with CL 10 or lower is fine as well.
2133 speed with CL 11 or lower is good too.

CL = CAS Latency. That is the delay per cycle of the memory. Memory speed is a combination of the speed (1600, 1866, 2133...) and the CL number. The higher the speed and the lower the CL number combines to determine the overall speed. 1600 speed with CL 9 is about the same speed as 1866 speed with CL 10.

If you find the faster speed memory with the CL number at what I listed or lower for the same or very close to the same price, take the faster one. But do not pay more than about $5 extra for 1866 or $10 extra for 2133 memory.

After 2133 memory, it is normally not worth paying anything beyond what you would pay for 2133 memory. There just is not that much of a boost from it.

 

[ChumP]

Go with the WD Blue and RAM.
The performance difference between these 2 HDD's it's pretty small.
8 GB's of RAM is enough for the majority of games, and the crucial ballistix sport wil be great , being pretty reliable too.
So, adding the WD Blue + RAM will bring a bigger performance bump, being the better choice.

 

[smackers_12]

WD Black are fast (for a hard drive anyways). And they have a 5 year warranty.
WD Blue are not as fast. And they have a 2 year warranty.
I would be willing to pay the extra $13.01 for an extra 3 year warranty alone. But in this case, the black is 7200 RPM, and the blue, I think is 5900 RPM. WD goes out of their way not to actually tell us the RPM numbers anymore.

As for memory...
1600 speed with CL 9 or lower will be fine.
1866 speed with CL 10 or lower is fine as well.
2133 speed with CL 11 or lower is good too.

If you find the faster speed memory with the CL number at what I listed or lower for the same or very close to the same price, take the faster one. But do not pay more than about $5 extra for 1866 or $10 extra for 2133 memory.

After 2133 memory, it is normally not worth paying anything beyond what you would pay for 2133 memory. There just is not that much of a boost from it.

I think the Blue is still 7200rpm, but it is a slower drive. For the extra $13 get the Black though, the difference in price is normally much more.

 

[MarkW]

Seems most of the Blue drives are 5400 RPM...

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=770

On the above page, click on Specifications.

 

[smackers_12]

Seems most of the Blue drives are 5400 RPM...

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=770

On the above page, click on Specifications.

I was wrong, My bad.