Are the WD Black HDD SATA drives really worth the money for storing games?

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thepcgamer099

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Currently I have a SSD storing my OS alone and a 1 TB hard drive storing my program files and game files on the same drive. I need a new drive because this drive is now full, and I feel getting a drive separate for game files would be worthwhile. However I am not sure whether to buy a 2 TB hard drive or a 3 TB hard drive. At the moment I have around 90 pc games (more or less) which together combine to just over 700 GB worth of data. I am not sure whether buying a 2 TB hard drive will, in time, be too small for my growing steam and origin libraries, since game files are getting much bigger as quality increases. I do play modern games too, so the file sizes are usually rather large. As well as this I am unsure whether to get a WD black drive for the extra performance. They are considerably more pricey and I am unsure of the performance gap between black drives and a standard green or blue drive (I don't know how much better black drives really are). I would prefer to keep my games together on the same drive that is why I am wary of getting a 2 TB hard drive and it possibly becoming too small, and having to buy another drive. This is because I am also going to get a few other drives, such as a 3 TB hard drive to store high quality DSLR images for photography. Also would a green drive suit this need well as an energy saving drive? Also where would be the best/cheapest place to purchase these drives new (available in the UK). Many thanks for any feedback, kind regards, Tom
 
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Swordkd
Your motherboard can support raid 0 no problem. It's best to do so between the same drive, but yes, you can raid two different drives.

There are some options for 2gb+ HDD's. Seagate Barracuda is the cheapest option, 64mb buffer and 7200rpm. HOWever, they have a much higher failure rate than most other major brands.

WD Blue would most likely be a safe bet. It's not Caviar Blue, so I don't know what the difference is, but, it is a 5400rpm drive. There is also a Hitachi Deskstar model. What I remember about them(or the OEM producing them) is fairly good. IBM drives were manufactured by the same company, and they were really good.

I'd pick up two 2tb models, and Raid 0 them, again. It's not hard and you'll be able to pick it up...
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joex444

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Blue drives top out at 1TB, so the relevant choices are Black, Green, and Red. Green is slower and decent for archiving files, but not good for games.

I'd go with Red or Black on this one. Black performs a bit better, check out some benchmarks but I think you'll be happy with Red and the price is better. Red is their NAS line - they work just fine in desktops and because they are NAS branded they're meant for 24/7 usage.
 
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Swordkd

Swordkd

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You could also delete the games and just keep the save files. The Black series is one of the best performing HDD out there. However, real-world performance you'd never notice it. They do have a longer warranty though.

I'd buy two 2tb HDD's and set them up Raid 0. It will increase the possibility for losing your data due to relying on two drives, but your access times will be greatly improved. I'd take that risk no problems.
 
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thepcgamer099

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thank you very much for your feedback I'm pretty sure I am going to go with a red drive for games on this one, thank you
 
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thepcgamer099

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I don't know very much about raid at all, so I am not quite sure whether I am willing to take that risk, but would the Asus z87-PRO be capable of raid 0 and can raid occur between two different coloured drives or should you on;y raid with the exact same product? Also if data is lost during raid is that an exclusion on the warranty of the drives?
 
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ohiou_grad_2006

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Would think raid would be fine. You can even do software raid in windows. Takes a little cpu power, but as powerful as modern cpus are shod be ok.

If you can afford it, get the red or black drive. Bless are ok for the money, but have heard of quite a few failures on them. The black is their upper line, and red as someone told you are for 24x7, so I'd say one of those is a good choice.
 
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Swordkd

Swordkd

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Your motherboard can support raid 0 no problem. It's best to do so between the same drive, but yes, you can raid two different drives.

There are some options for 2gb+ HDD's. Seagate Barracuda is the cheapest option, 64mb buffer and 7200rpm. HOWever, they have a much higher failure rate than most other major brands.

WD Blue would most likely be a safe bet. It's not Caviar Blue, so I don't know what the difference is, but, it is a 5400rpm drive. There is also a Hitachi Deskstar model. What I remember about them(or the OEM producing them) is fairly good. IBM drives were manufactured by the same company, and they were really good.

I'd pick up two 2tb models, and Raid 0 them, again. It's not hard and you'll be able to pick it up no problem if you feel comfortable installing the drive yourself. It really does improve load times by quite a bit(not as much as an SSD, but still a large improvement).

Reference:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Storage: Western Digital Red 2TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive ($84.00 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital Blue 2TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive ($77.89 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Hitachi Deskstar 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($64.95 @ Amazon)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($65.88 @ OutletPC)
Total: $292.72
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-01-01 19:18 EST-0500
 
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thepcgamer099

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thank you very much, i am, comfortable installing drives as I built my own pc, so i have no problem adjusting and fiddling with hardware. I was planning on using 2 x 2 TB WD Red hard drives and i will store game files and program files on them, so I should see a relatively large performance boost. The one query I have is that in raid 0 if one drive fails I will lose all of my data, will it be worth the risk, and is the failure rate pretty low for the wd red 2 tb drives? Also I knew about the seagate bad failure rate, so I am not willing to take the risk and use those drives in a raid 0. Finally is the hitachi drive at 7200RPM faster than the WD red drive which is only at 5400RPM? Because if the hitachi drive is faster I may go with that option as it seems pointless to pay extra for a slower drive.
 
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thepcgamer099

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I am pretty sure my cpu should be be able to take it, i have an intel i7 4790k, I think i will go with the red drive option because the black drives are much more expensive, and I do not think i am willing to spend all of that extra cash, but a red drive certainly yes
 
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ohiou_grad_2006

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As I said, most modern systems have enough cpu power and memory to cope with it. 5-10 years ago if you were running a server maybe not.

I would not have a problem recommending these.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822149407

They are Toshibas and a bit cheaper than the WD reds, but I've used quite a few toshibas and they seem ok. In fact at work we are running 1TB desktop grade sata drives in an older server, been like that for over a year and knock wood, they've been holding strong at 24x7 usage.
 
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