Decision Help: Spinpoint F3 1TB vs WD 1.5 Caviar Green

[kyteflya777]

Spinpoint F3 1 TB or Western Digital 1.5 TB Caviar Green?

Building a rig, will be mostly for gaming, internet, work, some photoshop (not much) etc.

Which will suit me best, or which is the better value in terms of performance? Also, pardon ignorance, but how much storage is 1 TB? And lastly, would a single 500gb HDD suffice?

 

[inerax]

i have a WD 1.0TB Caviar Green and love it.

I have used WD for YEARS (7+) with 0 drive failures.

1.5TB HDD's are cheap now days. do that one

 

[h3art-hack3r]

1 TB = 1024 GB

 

[wolf1e]

If you're planning to install your OS on it, definitely go with the Spinpoint F3, the WD Caviar Green HD's are dreadfully slow, the rpm is listed under 'Intellipower" but are basically spinning no higher than 5400 rpm and are mostly used for storage. I would still go with the Spinpoint F3, even if it's less storage, it has fastest access times even if its just loading games and applications.

 

[runswindows95]

Another vote for the Samsung. The only reason to get the WD is if this drive is being used for storage only.

 

[Wisecracker]

Formatted capacity of a 1TB HDD is around 931GB

The Spinpoint would make a much better drive for your OS/Apps.

 

[tokencode]

yea I agree, go wiht hte spinpoint, the green droves are just for mass storage where performance doesn't matter.

 

[photonboy]

Some points:
1) 1TB is 930GB of USABLE hard drive space after formatting etc

2) My Windows 7 install, with NO games, eventually reached about 70GB

3) A DVD movie, or BluRay rip is on average 7GB

4) You should have TWO hard drives in a computer:

Drive#1: Faster, lower-capacity drive for Windows (7200RPM 500GB 3.5" or an SSD such as the OCZ Vertex 2 or 3 120GB but SSD's are expensive)

Drive #2: Slower, higher-capacity drive for backups, games and multimedia such as a 2TB 5400RPM Western Digital

5) How large your drives are depends mainly on whether you store a lot of video, or have a lot of video games. Many new games average 10GB.

6) It's HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that you purchase a program like Acronis True Image and setup automated backups if your main drive (main partition if it is partitioned). Periodically delete earlier backups to save space. If your main drive dies physically or has unfixable software issues (like viruses) you can then RESTORE your latest, uncorrupted backup. It's good to have a few backups.

7) I use STEAM for games. I have a main SSD drive for Windows (120GB OCZ Vertex 2) and a secondary 2TB drive for games, backups etc. I just made a folder on the 2TB drive called "STEAM" and that is where all the Steam stuff is. For non-Steam games I just install them to a folder called "GAMES", again on my second drive (SSD's are expensive).

 

[photonboy]

NCIX is a great online store. Check out their daily deal section and also compare prices to any local stores. Shipping might be $10 or more so factor that in.

Most hard drive companies today are quite good.

 

[jaguarskx]

I would get the Spinpoint if the drive is for your OS.

I would get the WD Caviar Green for storage.