SSD vs. 10000rpm HDD

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
C

ChrisB1990

Reputable
Dec 9, 2015
82
0
4,640
I am looking into buying a hard drive to store my games on. I currently have a 1tb HDD (not sure how many rpms) that is 6 years old and a 250gb Samsung Evo 850 SSD. I was thinking of buying another 500gb SSD to replace my old 1tb HDD but they are a bit out of my budget right now. Is a 10000rpm HDD noticeably faster then most HDDs? And would you recommend it for game storage?
 
Solution
S
10K RPM HDDs are kind of pointless. They have SSD style prices and are still much slower. For this reason I'd recommend an SSD. You don't necessarily need a 500 GB. If all you're using it for is OS, installed program, and a few games AND you already have at least one HDD for data storage a smaller SSD would be fine.

As for whether you need an SSD for gaming, that entirely depends on which games. Some games have a lot of asset load. On an SSD this is no problem, on a mechanical drive this will greatly increase load time and in a few cases appear as if it were network latency (looking at you Diablo 3). The easiest way of checking is find your game folder, right click, properties, look at the total number of files in that folder. If it's...
Sort by date Sort by votes
R

rkzhao

Respectable
Mar 8, 2016
183
1
1,860
A 10K HDD will be faster, however, I don't think you really need it. Even a 5400rpm HDD nowadays should be ok for some gaming. A 7200rpm drive would be plenty. Remember, faster HDDs are louder, generate more heat, can wear faster, cost more, etc. Really, I'm not sure how many 10K HDDs are still being made.

One of the main areas where SSDs are replacing HDDs across the industry is in the high performance high rpm HDDs.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
C

ChrisB1990

Reputable
Dec 9, 2015
82
0
4,640


okay thanks. I imagine just a new hard drive in general will improve performance over a 6 year old hard drive.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
nitrium

nitrium

Distinguished
Jul 27, 2009
1,552
99
20,590
If you're only using it to STORE games, then I don't see an issue (I use a slow 5400 rpm 3.5TB WD Green for precisely this purpose). If you want to have all your games INSTALLED, then an SSD will always give faster load times than an HDD (although the benefits do differ drastically from game to game).
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
fudoka711

fudoka711

Distinguished
Apr 2, 2012
1,308
0
19,960
I would recommend getting a 7200rpm hdd. The only major benefit of a faster hdd is a faster map/level loading time. Other than that, your fps will hardly go up.

A 7200rpm drive would be more than enough. I personally like WD Black myself, but any 5400/7200rpm hdd works.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Mr5oh

Mr5oh

Splendid
Jul 28, 2004
2,982
27
21,940
For consumer line drives, you can still get the VelociRaptor drives from a few retailers from Western Digital that are 10k RPM that are a standard SATA, but these drives aren't actually being made anymore. Even if you can random read and writes were slightly faster, but substained read/writes weren't really that much faster than 7200 RPM drives. Reliability wise, I had a couple Raptor drives and they were all great, I even have one of the original 36 GB models that still in service without issue in a Linux box. Looking at the price of 10k drives now though, they are so close to SSD prices, you might as well go SSD.

Personally if it were me, I'd just pick up a conventional 7200 RPM drive. My preference is still the WD black drives. My steam folder resides on a 2 TB black drive, while the OS resides on a Samsung 850 M.2 drive.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
R

rhysiam

Splendid
Mar 24, 2013
4,366
29
26,990
If you're considering the WD Blacks, it's worth bearing in mind just how expensive those things are. I also find them significantly louder than most other drives on the market. No question that they perform well when compared to other HDDs, they're measurably faster than a lesser drive, but they're priced at around 70% higher than something like a WD blue (5400 RPM), and the double the price of a 7200RPM Seagate drive. I don't know quite what the performance advantage is to the Blacks, but I can guarantee you there will be between very few and absolutely no situations where it's 70% faster than a Blue or Seagate 7200RPM drive.

Just FYI, as a point of comparison, for the price of a 2TB WD Black you could actually get a 2TB Blue, or 2TB Seagate drive AND a cheap SSD. Then you could leverage Intel RST to utilise the SSD as a read + write cache for the slower HDD. Of course, this suggestion is extra complexity, points of failure, and plenty on the forums here don't have much respect for the build quality or reliability of Seagate drives, so that needs to be considered.

I'm merely making the point that you pay A LOT of money for the privilege of a WD Black. For some, that will absolutely be worth it, but just make an educated decision for yourself.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
R

rkzhao

Respectable
Mar 8, 2016
183
1
1,860


This is a fair point to consider. WD Blacks are know for being somewhat loud and it certainly is more expensive. In theory, it's higher quality parts that offer better long term reliability. The Seagate equivalent is a Barracuda Pro. For these "pro" level drives, you also get a longer 5-year warranty instead of the 2-3 years offered on regular drives. The warranty is nice to have for peace of mind. The actual performance difference in practice is probably negligible.

Otherwise, a WD Blue or Seagate Barracuda should do just fine.

It's essentially the same idea in choosing between a Samsung 850 Evo and a Samsung 850 Pro.

 
Upvote 0 Downvote
R

rhysiam

Splendid
Mar 24, 2013
4,366
29
26,990
Warranty is a certainly a factor a didn't mention in my first post, good point.

OP, I was in your almost exact situation, with an SSD boot disk and looking for a replacement for a dead gaming drive. I was initially look at the WD Blacks, but ended up with a Seagate SSHD (for substantially LESS money). You shouldn't think of them like SSDs... with only 8GB of flash they're absolutely not SSD-like. But they ARE a decent option for a high performance HDD. Because I tend to play a single game for a decent chunk of time, the algorithms seem to work okay at keeping the flash full of useful data.

If you're looking at 1TB drives at US pricing right now, they look a little overpriced to me. But the 2TB drives are competitively priced. The Seagate ones also have 5 year warranties (@rkzhao's post reminded me) too. For comparison, you can get a 2TB 7200RPM Seagate Firecuda or the older hybrid drive models for around $100-105, which is a solid $10-15 less than a 2TB Black.

Might not be the right choice for you, but it's worth considering and definitely (IMHO) a better option than whatever 10,000 rpm drive you might be able to get your hands on.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Mr5oh

Mr5oh

Splendid
Jul 28, 2004
2,982
27
21,940


While they are louder than a standard drive, it's not noticeable. My PC sits on my desk, even my media machine in the bedroom that I watch videos/TV and such on at night when I go to bed I can't hear the them. You're still talking about something that's just not loud enough to be heard over even most quiet PC fans.

As for price, well yeah, it's more expensive, no denying that. I'm OK with that too. They are faster. So far every Black drive I've ever bought (knock on wood) is still running, when I upgrade to larger drives, the smaller ones have been moved to externals, or been handed down to in-laws and such. I have some that are pretty old at this point and still working perfectly. Western Digital drives have always been solid for me, so until that changes, the extra cost will be worth the peace of mind to me. Now for external USB drives it's a completely different story....

 
Upvote 0 Downvote
R

rhysiam

Splendid
Mar 24, 2013
4,366
29
26,990

Might not be noticeable for you... it is for some. I built a whitebox server for a client and put it under their office administrator's work desk. She found the clicking noise of the black drives I'd put in there to be extremely distracting. It surprised me because though I could hear them if I listened specifically for them, it didn't bother me and quickly blended in to the background. Noise is a very personal thing, particular frequencies or sounds bother some people more than others.

Still though - I do agree the Blacks are good drives. For me personally, for my home rig, I just think they're way too overpriced for what you get. Those seeking performance are better off with a hybrid drive or a DIY hybird drive using RST and a small SSD + cheaper HDD combo. Sure, they might be more reliable, but you still need a backup of important data anyway, so I personally don't care too much about that. Each to their own though, they do have some clear plus point.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
S

steven_15

Honorable
May 10, 2012
102
0
10,690
10K RPM HDDs are kind of pointless. They have SSD style prices and are still much slower. For this reason I'd recommend an SSD. You don't necessarily need a 500 GB. If all you're using it for is OS, installed program, and a few games AND you already have at least one HDD for data storage a smaller SSD would be fine.

As for whether you need an SSD for gaming, that entirely depends on which games. Some games have a lot of asset load. On an SSD this is no problem, on a mechanical drive this will greatly increase load time and in a few cases appear as if it were network latency (looking at you Diablo 3). The easiest way of checking is find your game folder, right click, properties, look at the total number of files in that folder. If it's in the tens or hundreds of thousands you will get asset load. SSDs won't care about asset load because they're not slowed down very much by large numbers of small files.

If you're simply storing games a mechanical hard drive is fine and I'd recommend Hitachi Ultrastar over anything listed. Just copy them on the SSD before you play them and put them back when you're done.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
Arkyo00

Arkyo00

Commendable
May 29, 2016
54
0
1,630
github.com


False.I am using a 5400 and loading games are slow af

 
Upvote -1 Downvote
fudoka711

fudoka711

Distinguished
Apr 2, 2012
1,308
0
19,960


No need to reply to this post - it's rather old. Besides, he never said a 5400rpm hdd led to fast load times. He only said they're okay for some gaming.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom