[SOLVED] Which hard drive to replace?

[Airbus580]

My 4TB WD Black for 5 years has started to fail, unfortunately it started failing 6 months after the warranty expired. I'm on a tight budget so I'm considering a Seagate Barracuda (st4000dm004) or WD Blue (EZRZ) to replace but my concern is the WD Black has programs and games installed and the RPM of the two choices I'm considering is only 5400 RPM. Would that be fine? I don't really play the latest PC intensive games (I play in emulators e.g. Bluestacks, Yuzu, Citra). My OS installation is on SSD. I have more failures in Seagate than WD (this is my 2nd WD failure and also another WD Black failure). Thanks for the input.

 

[rocktalkrock]

Try looking your HDD model number on this website "The HDD Platter Capacity Database".

The HDD Platter Capacity Database

rml527.blogspot.com

High Hard Disk Density = Fast Hard Disk Speed - True

Most people won't ever bother with hard disk data density (or the number of hard disk platters) when shopping for a new drive, but you should... since it has a real-world effect on HDD speed.

In a nutshell, a hard disk drive with higher data density is able to store more data per platter. Since the data are packed closer together, the read/write head has to travel shorter distances to access data on the hard disk drive. This time saved will translate to quicker hard disk drive speeds.

Lesson of the day: When you buy a hard disk drive, always try to settle for the one with the least number of hard disk platters (highest data density).

 

[Bob.B]

My 4TB WD Black for 5 years has started to fail, unfortunately it started failing 6 months after the warranty expired. I'm on a tight budget so I'm considering a Seagate Barracuda (st4000dm004) or WD Blue (EZRZ) to replace but my concern is the WD Black has programs and games installed and the RPM of the two choices I'm considering is only 5400 RPM. Would that be fine? I don't really play the latest PC intensive games (I play in emulators e.g. Bluestacks, Yuzu, Citra). My OS installation is on SSD. I have more failures in Seagate than WD (this is my 2nd WD failure and also another WD Black failure). Thanks for the input.

Six of one half dozen of the other.
You have to shop within your budget.
They both have a 2 yr warranty.
The seagate has a larger cache.

 

[Airbus580]

Six of one half dozen of the other.
You have to shop within your budget.
They both have a 2 yr warranty.
The seagate has a larger cache.

I just saw that the Seagate one is SMR while the WD blue is CMR, shouldn't I be more inclined with the latter since I have programs installed there running all the time (not to mention some gaming)?

 

[Bob.B]

I just saw that the Seagate one is SMR while the WD blue is CMR, shouldn't I be more inclined with the latter since I have programs installed there running all the time (not to mention some gaming)?

The cmr will be better if you are going to be doing a lot of writes to the disk.