I request some help on hard drive choices for a computer build

Toxikaraidur · Apr 23, 2017

I have several drives to consider for Primary, Secondary, and beyond for Storage. I don't mind using upwards of 6 drives for the system, but I'd like not to for the sake of weight, cost, power consumption, and most particularly: noise.

ssd for boot and system only
another ssd for 'must be super fast' programs
now to consider some drives for actual storage.

In no particular order of preference or category these are the following drives I have in consideration:

1: Western Digital Black
6TB
128MB Buffer Cache
7200RPM (redundant but here nonetheless for consistency)
279.99 USD (based on best price from PCPartPicker)

2: Toshiba X300
6TB
128MB Buffer Cache
7200RPM
191.99 USD

3: Western Digital Gold
6TB
128MB Buffer Cache
7200RPM
268.99 USD

4: Western Digital Red
8TB
128MB Buffer Cache
5400RPM
279.99 USD

The specs I don't know and wish to find out from someone who has used any of these:
Noise in following categories: Seek, Read, Write, Rotational Noise, Vibration Noise (I have 'mods' in the works for HDD silencers, cages, foam, rubber mounts, etc, so vibration noise can be killed easily)

Which one has the better value for the performance
which one has better value for the storage
And which one will have the best reliability?

The last one I think the WD Gold will have the best reliability seeing as it's an enterprise drive, but again, Gold is expensive as heck, and Black is overpriced in my opinion.

I am open to any suggestions for other drives similarly specced, but please keep in mind: I would like to have no more than 6 drives in this system (so wiggle room of four max) and I'd like each individual drive to NOT cost more than 300.
Please no Seagate recommendations as I have had terrible luck with their products overall.

Thank you in advance guys!

velocityg4 · Apr 23, 2017

You say upwards of six drives. What is the total capacity you need? 36TB?

The WD black is out. It is a consumer drive. You want a NAS/Enterprise drive designed for higher vibration. Plus TLER if you are setting up RAID, Storage Space, &c.

If hard drive speed is not a huge factor. I would the 8TB WD Red. Fewer drives, less heat, less vibration, less noise, lower cost per TB. The WD Gold is overkill. It is meant more data centers with huge racks of hard drives and very heavy read/write access from many users. Although with such a high data density the WD Red 8TB performs quite well.

I don't know much about the Toshiba X300. From what I can find it is a consumer drive. I'd avoid it in a setup with numerous drives.

Toxikaraidur · Apr 23, 2017

velocityg4 :

My main concerns were performance and noise. My content creation will be taking place, for the most part, on an SSD. the most 'intense' games, things that need a lot of I/O from the drive rather than the ram, I may not have the space for on the ssd.

So you recommend the reds for this build?

velocityg4 · Apr 23, 2017

Performance and noise are at odds. A 5,400RPM Red will be quieter and cheaper a 7,200RPM Red Pro or Gold will be faster.

Knowing your total budget for storage and total storage space needs would be helpful in giving a recommendation.

As you get more storage for the money with the 8TB WD Red. You may save enough money to buy a dedicated 1TB SSD for games.

Toxikaraidur · Apr 23, 2017

velocityg4 :

Shockingly, once I did the math, I found that my storage section is around 900 dollars. ssd for boot and system critical things, ssd for work/play, two hdds for storage. seeing as you recommend the reds, I'll go with two of the 8TB ones. 560 USD but 16TB of storage will last me near a lifetime.

Thus far, I've been on a laptop with single channel 2x4gb ddr3l ram with a 1TB 16mb buffer cache 5400rpm drive. If I REALLY pay close attention, i can hear the one fan and the spindle. I may be grossly underestimating just how super-performing this Beast is going to be, but dangit I want something to last me practically forever.

velocityg4 · Apr 23, 2017

Toxikaraidur :

That won't happen. I can remember when my first 2GB drive seemed an insane amount of space. I'm now struggling with 10TB.

While not the fastest on the market. Those 8TB drives will certainly be faster than your laptop drive and are faster than most 3TB and 4TB 7,200RPM drives. By virtue of the increased density per platter. The 5,400 RPM 8TB WD Red has similar performance to the 7,200RPM 4TB WD Red Pro. Sometimes much better performance.
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/7681/wd-red-8tb-helium-filled-wd80efzx-nas-hdd-review/index4.html

Toxikaraidur · Apr 23, 2017

That won't happen. I can remember when my first 2GB drive seemed an insane amount of space. I'm now struggling with 10TB.

I've had this laptop (the one who's partial specs i mentioned) for well over 4 years now. I am just now hitting the 350GB mark on used space.

While I will say that I can't say the same for my ps3 or xbox in generations past, my pc has an amazing usage to storage ratio.
I haven't had to delete things from it often.

I do plan to buy and load a metric TON of games to the pc when I build it and then play with a whole plethora of mods, so the 8TB red will probably fill up a tad quickly to a certain point, but beyond that I don't see it growing so quickly. I still either watch dvds with an optical drive, or watch vids from sites and netflix.

Thank you!

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