WD Black or something different?

ezimoto

Commendable
Oct 11, 2016
3
0
1,510
Hi guys
My sons pc which is used mainly for gaming has had one of its two Seagate Barracuda 1tb drives fail.
I was thinking of replacing with two WD Black drives but also considering a Samsung Evo.
Does anyone have a suggestion of the best way to go, budget around £500ish?
My knowledge is limited so apologies if I've left anything out!
Setup is:
GTX680
G1 Guerrilla i7 920
Corsair X3S3 4gb x4
Thermaltake Toughpower 1200w
Corsair hydro fan

Hope this is enough info, thanks in advance
Ezi
 
Solution
No, certainly not. Extra space is not a bad thing. You can use one of the drives for back up purposes.
I believe 500 GB SSD would be sufficient. Yet, if it falls within the budget, a 1 TB SSD may be a better option. Of course, it depends on the model, but larger SSDs tend to have TBW (terabytes written - endurance) and better performance. You can check that out in the specs sheet.

Don't you worry about asking questions. This is why we are here for after all.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD :)
Hi there ezimoto,

Do you need that much storage space?

My suggestion would be to get an SSD + HDDs depending on the storage space needs. Even though WD Blacks are performance oriented drives, then can't really compare to solid state drives. You can install the OS and the most demanding games and applications on the SSD. This would significantly shorten boot and loading times.

Apart from that, if you don't really need much storage space, I believe you can keep your current drive, if it is in a healthy state. You can check if this is the case with one of these: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/282651-32-best-diagnostic-testing-utility

Yet, if you've already decided to replace the HDD, a WD Black drive (or a couple of those) would fit your needs. WD Black is a premium, performance oriented product with 5 years of limited warranty.

More on it's features: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=zIajtC

Cheers,
D_Know_WD :)
 

ezimoto

Commendable
Oct 11, 2016
3
0
1,510
Thanks very much for the advice.
I'm not sure if "need" is the word as far as storage goes but as the 1 or 2tb Blacks are not too expensive I didn't think extra space would be a bad thing?
In your opinion what size SSD would be suitable for his mostly gaming use, I was thinking 500gb or 1tb or do you feel larger would be better?
Apologies for questions which probably have an obvious answer to an expert!
Ezi
 
No, certainly not. Extra space is not a bad thing. You can use one of the drives for back up purposes.
I believe 500 GB SSD would be sufficient. Yet, if it falls within the budget, a 1 TB SSD may be a better option. Of course, it depends on the model, but larger SSDs tend to have TBW (terabytes written - endurance) and better performance. You can check that out in the specs sheet.

Don't you worry about asking questions. This is why we are here for after all.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD :)
 
Solution

ezimoto

Commendable
Oct 11, 2016
3
0
1,510
Thanks again, just what I needed.
I have bought two 2tb WD Blacks and a 500gb Samsung Evo (as it has same endurance as the 1tb) which all fits into my budget.
Thank you so much for your help, just need to figure out how to set it all up when it arrives now!!
Regards

Ezi
 
Hi there ezimoto,

I would be best to perform a clean OS installation. Keep in mind that the SSD should be the only drive attached to your system. I believe you can place it on SATA port 0. Yet, you can double check your MOBO's manual.
Alternatively, you can consider cloning your current OS drive onto the SSD. Keep in mind that you may need to shrink the OS partition through Disk Management, as the HDD has bigger capacity. The cloning process would create exactly the same copy of your OS installation. Most of the HDD/SSD manufacturers have their own tools. Third party ones would do the job as well.

Once you've installed OS on the SSD (cloned it), you can attach the HDDs. Your new WD Blacks would need to be initialized -> partitioned and formatted.
As for your other mechanical drive, I believe you can back up all the data stored on it and reformat it, so you can remove the OS installation and apps installed.

How to initialize a drive: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=HS5d59
How to partition and format a drive: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=BzXrsd

Let me know in case you have some more questions,
D_Know_WD :)