Which HDD to choose for a secondary drive?

[mihailt]

Hey guys,

I'm almost done with assembling my new PC. Specs are as follows:

Intel i5-8400
Gigabyte H370 Aorus Gaming 3 WiFi
HyperX Fury 32 GB RAM @ 2666MHz
MSI GTX 1070 Gaming X (which will likely be replaced by something from the upcoming Nvidia GPUs, depending on their performance/pricing)
Samsung 960 EVO 500 GB (or the new WD Black NVME SSD once it comes out, also depending on performance and pricing)
Seasonic Focus Plus Gold 550W (SSR-550FX)

So, my plan is to use the Samsung 960 EVO as the OS drive, as well as have programs and games installed on it. The question is which drive should I choose as a secondary, which will be used purely as media storage - movies, music, photos and so on. Excel files that I need will likely be stored on the SSD.

I currently have 2 x 1TB Western Digital Black HDDs, however, both are about 4 years old and approaching the end of their life cycles, so I guess it's better to change them now and start clean in the new PC before they fail.

The price for a 2TB WD Black HDD is quite steep, whereas a 3TB WD Blue costs as much as a 1TB WD Black. Also, another model I was looking at - the 2 TB Seagate Firecuda - is priced similarly to the WD Blue in local stores.

What would you advise me - do I really need high performance HDDs @ 7200 RPM for a drive that will simply store and play media, or would I be fine with a 5000 RPM? Also, if I'm missing some quality HDD model, let me know about it, from what I gathered the 3 drives mentioned above are pretty good, each in its own way. Personally, I've had no issues with my WD Blacks, but do I really need to spend more for a performance HDD if my new system's main drive will be an NVME SSD?

 

[Solandri]

For this application, I think a 5400 RPM drive is more appropriate. Because HDD data density has been increasing (more bits per cm^2), HDD large and medium file read/write rates have been increasing even though RPM has remained the same. A modern 5400 RPM drive can hit 150+ MB/s sequential speeds, whereas you needed a 7200 RPM drive to surpass 125 MB/s in the past. Where 5400 RPM drives start to suffer is in the small file read/write speeds, since on average they have to wait half a disk rotation to move the heads to a new file location. But even there, a 7200 RPM drive is only 33% faster. A SSD or even a SSHD will completely blow either away. And it doesn't sound like you plan to store many small files (a few kB in size) on this drive.

However, I would avoid the 5400 RPM WD drives. WD puts a very short head parking timer on them, which can cause stuttering in games. It probably won't affect you since you're planning to use a SSD as your OS drive. But the issue could crop up if you play games off the HDD (because all your games are too big to fit on your SSD). Basically the WD drives park their heads after about 10-15 seconds of inactivity. The next time there's a disk access request, instead of the read/write heads moving immediately to process it, there's about a quarter to half second delay as the heads unpark. If that disk access request is time-sensitive (e.g. reading a new texture off the game needs to draw the next frame), the pause while the heads unpark will appear as a stutter.

I've got a 500 GB SSD + 1 TB 5400 RPM WD drive affected by this issue, but I avoid it by copying any games I'm currently playing to my SSD. It crops up if I try to play off the HDD, and the one time I tried putting a pagefile on the HDD (which was a disaster since it affected regular GUI operations too).

The Seagate SSHD is overkill for media, but if you ever play games off the HDD with a lot of small files which need to be read, it will help speed those up and reduce the wait time on load screens. I usually only recommend SSHDs if they're going to be your only drive and you can't afford a SSD that large. But if it's the same price as a similar-size HDD in your area, there's no reason not to get it.

Edit: Almost forgot, if you keep good backups, there's no reason not to reuse one of your 1TB WD Black drives even though they're approaching EOL. That rating is more for companies who want to absolutely minimize failure rates. It's not like the drive develops a high chance of failing once it hits 4 years. Between backups and SMART warning you of possible problems, there's very little risk of using an older drive. And in your case you have a second replacement drive ready to go in case the first one ever does fail.

 

[mihailt]

Many thanks for the detailed explanation, Solandri! I think I'll go with the Firecuda then.

 

[madmatt30]

Just Toshiba for me nowadays for secondary drives.

I consider them the best price/performance drives by miles .

The wd blue 2tb+ as said are 5400rpm with over enthusiastic power saving features.
Seagates ?? Was bitten by a bad batch of 2/3
Tb drives a few years back - tend to steer clear nowadays personally .

 

[mihailt]

Madmatt30, thanks for your input, is there a specific model of Toshiba HDD you would recommend?

 

[madmatt30]

I'm running 2 x p300s & also a couple of dt01ac drives in another system.

Two are 3tb models, the other two are 2tb.

The dt01 have been running close to 4 years with not a single issue.
The p300 maybe 18 months - again not a single issue.

Veer towards the p300 simply because it's very very quiet when seeking etc.
Performance is about the same.
Theyre fast drives ,on par with the barracuda's.

 

[mihailt]

Alright, thanks for the info. I'll check if they're available in local stores, as well.

 

[mdd1963]

Hey guys,

I'm almost done with assembling my new PC. Specs are as follows:

Intel i5-8400
Gigabyte H370 Aorus Gaming 3 WiFi
HyperX Fury 32 GB RAM @ 2666MHz
MSI GTX 1070 Gaming X (which will likely be replaced by something from the upcoming Nvidia GPUs, depending on their performance/pricing)
Samsung 960 EVO 500 GB (or the new WD Black NVME SSD once it comes out, also depending on performance and pricing)
Seasonic Focus Plus Gold 550W (SSR-550FX)

So, my plan is to use the Samsung 960 EVO as the OS drive, as well as have programs and games installed on it. The question is which drive should I choose as a secondary, which will be used purely as media storage - movies, music, photos and so on. Excel files that I need will likely be stored on the SSD.

I currently have 2 x 1TB Western Digital Black HDDs, however, both are about 4 years old and approaching the end of their life cycles, so I guess it's better to change them now and start clean in the new PC before they fail.

The price for a 2TB WD Black HDD is quite steep, whereas a 3TB WD Blue costs as much as a 1TB WD Black. Also, another model I was looking at - the 2 TB Seagate Firecuda - is priced similarly to the WD Blue in local stores.

An HGST 4 TB 7200 rpm NAS-approved drive is about $129 last time I checked, down from $160-ish a year ago....; it gets about 180 MB/sec sequential reads and writes on CrystalDiskmark (the 4TB HGST models fared well on Backblaze failure stats too, with less failure rates of between .19-.47% with many thousands of drives used....

Some of the Seagate 4TB models had 9% failure rates.... (ouch!)

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-stats-for-2017/

As for 4 year WD Black 'end of life' , that might be a tad pessimistic, unless you were hammering them consistently with 2TB of reads/writes per day for years....

 

[mihailt]

Thanks for your reply, mdd1963!

For some reason, HGST is quite weakly represented by local dealers and pricing is not reasonable at all.

You may be right that my WD Blacks have still got decent mileage left in them, but this is more of a "I'd like everything new inside" type of scenario.