What's the best 4TB hard drive for gaming and editing out there?

[lhpcopsp]

I'm looking for a good 4TB HDD, I purchased a 4TB WD Blue hard drive a couple months ago, but after a week it just failed out of the blue, taking away a bunch of personal data. After researching, I found out that the Blue hard drives above 1TB are just the Green lineup with a new color. I found that Hitachi is the most reliable brand when it comes to hard drives, but is no longer in the market because WD bought HGST brand. And Seagate's reputation's not helping.

So I'm here to ask, what's the best 3 or 4TB Hard Drives that's worth it price out there in your opinion?
I'm referring to the fact that a lot of people believe that WD Black ain't worth its price. So I want to ask if you know any similar option that has good performance and a reasonable price.

I just plan to use it to install my games, stream some times, store music, pictures and movies, and edit some video projects from time to time. Thus I didn't enjoy 4TB Blue drive performance, I have 3.5'' 160GB drive and 2.5''´500GB models and they are twice the speed the 4TB model had.

My boot drive is a 250GB 860 EVO SSD, on 2.5'' format.

Additionally I want to ask if any of you have HGST Deskstar NAS 4TB drive and if it is a good choice for desktop use. I've found people claiming for it to perform just as well, but explanation wasn't especific, and there are no reviews about this drive in gaming.

 

[Solandri]

Actually, regulators required HGST's 3.5" production assets (factories and IP, or at least licenses to IP) be sold to Toshiba as a condition of WD buying HGST. Prior to the merger, Toshiba only produced 2.5" HDDs. By requiring HGST's 3.5" production be sold to Toshiba, regulators insured there would be 3 companies manufacturing 3.5" HDDs.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/5635/western-digital-to-sell-hitachis-35-hard-drive-business-to-toshiba-complete-hitachi-buyout

Unless you're buying models that are several years old, it's difficult to say which HDD is better. It takes a years to build up enough statistical data to really narrow down the failure rate for a particular model. Backblaze is the only company I've seen publicize their data. But even in their data, the sample sizes are small enough that the uncertainty bars on some of the models are +/- 20% or more (that is, even if they get a 2% failure rate, statistically, the true failure rate could be anywhere between 0% to 22% if the sample size is too small).

You're better off just buying a cheap drive which suits your needs, and being sure to make backups in case of failure. I used to give Toshiba the nod because WD and Seagate would send you a refurbished drive in exchange for a warranty return. Toshiba used to give you credit in their online store to purchase a new drive, so you would get a new drive instead of a refurb, and you could use it as an opportunity to upgrade to a bigger drive. But I don't think they do that anymore.

In terms of performance, they're all nearly identical. They all use platters which rotate at a fixed speed, so between 7200 RPM drives only the areal density (how many bits are stored per square inch) affects read/write speeds. And those differences are minuscule compared to the difference with a SSD. Just avoid the WD Green / Blue (5400RPM) / SSHD as they have a head parking issue which can cause stutter in games and general computing.

 

[lhpcopsp]

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[lhpcopsp]

Actually, regulators required HGST's 3.5" production assets (factories and IP, or at least licenses to IP) be sold to Toshiba as a condition of WD buying HGST. Prior to the merger, Toshiba only produced 2.5" HDDs. By requiring HGST's 3.5" production be sold to Toshiba, regulators insured there would be 3 companies manufacturing 3.5" HDDs.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/5635/western-digital-to-sell-hitachis-35-hard-drive-business-to-toshiba-complete-hitachi-buyout

Unless you're buying models that are several years old, it's difficult to say which HDD is better. It takes a years to build up enough statistical data to really narrow down the failure rate for a particular model. Backblaze is the only company I've seen publicize their data. But even in their data, the sample sizes are small enough that the uncertainty bars on some of the models are +/- 20% or more (that is, even if they get a 2% failure rate, statistically, the true failure rate could be anywhere between 0% to 22% if the sample size is too small).

You're better off just buying a cheap drive which suits your needs, and being sure to make backups in case of failure. I used to give Toshiba the nod because WD and Seagate would send you a refurbished drive in exchange for a warranty return. Toshiba used to give you credit in their online store to purchase a new drive, so you would get a new drive instead of a refurb, and you could use it as an opportunity to upgrade to a bigger drive. But I don't think they do that anymore.

In terms of performance, they're all nearly identical. They all use platters which rotate at a fixed speed, so between 7200 RPM drives only the areal density (how many bits are stored per square inch) affects read/write speeds. And those differences are minuscule compared to the difference with a SSD. Just avoid the WD Green / Blue (5400RPM) / SSHD as they have a head parking issue which can cause stutter in games and general computing.

Thanks for clarifying that information about HGST! And thanks for the recomendations too!

I'm not exactly looking for the cheaper one, but for one that has a great price-performance value. But still, I'll just get the best deal I can find in Amazon ('Cause price difference is worth it. Here in my country, every hardware piece is almost twice the price.) and get an SSD for external Back-Up (I got an external hard drive enclosure that will do the job just perfect).

Sorry if I get too annoying, but what HDD would you personally recommend? A specific one, to be accurate.

 

[lhpcopsp]

Thanks for all your help! But Seagate contacted me and offered me to try their drives. Right now I'm enjoying a 4TB Barracuda Drive, that's given enough performance per GB and has reached a 183.5 Mb/s for reading and a 157.3 Mb/s for writing on CrystalDiskMark. As a storage drive I think is more than enough. Thanks for the advice and give Seagate a try, I think they will surprise you.