Best HDD for FRAPS

[HarUOne]

Hey, guys. I've been doing a bit of research looking for the best HDD for FRAPS.

I've come to three conclusions.

SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 7200 RPM 32MB Cache 1TB
Seagate ST2000DM001 Barracuda 7200RPM 2 TB
Western Digital Caviar Black SATA III 7200 RPM 64 MB Cache 2 TB

Which one is the best HDD for FRAPS in your guys' opinion? I understand that the WD Caviar Black is probably the best one but is there really that big of a difference in writing speeds between the Seagate one and the WD one?

It seems to me that the Seagate one is the best "value" considering it's 2 TB and only about $110 while the WD ranges from $180-200.

Are the writing speeds close enough that I won't be able to notice?

Just some additional info:

I'll be recording in 60 FPS most of the time. (My hardware should be able to handle it) and hopefully be able to record in 1080p. If not 1080, probably 720. Please help me find the right HDD! Thank you!

 

[Ubrales]

1) Western Digital Caviar Black SATA III 7200 RPM 64 MB Cache 2 TB
2) Seagate ST2000DM001 Barracuda 7200RPM 2 TB
3) SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 7200 RPM 32MB Cache 1TB

 

[jsrudd]

The HDD should have a minor effect on FRAPs and you should probably base your decision on other factors.

 

[HarUOne]

1) Western Digital Caviar Black SATA III 7200 RPM 64 MB Cache 2 TB
2) Seagate ST2000DM001 Barracuda 7200RPM 2 TB
3) SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 7200 RPM 32MB Cache 1TB

What's your reasoning on this?

 

[nukemaster]

The HDD should have a minor effect on FRAPs and you should probably base your decision on other factors.

I am with this post. Just use the drive for Fraps only. As long as nothing else is writing to it at the same time, you will be doing sequential writing. Any modern hard drive should be able to handle this.

If it was a OS drive as well with all kinds of other things happening then getting a drive with better access times would make more sense.

The link below shows the bit rates of some videos recorded on Fraps with the worst case average being about 55 megabytes/sec. This should be ok with almost any current drive. For best results, always clear out the drive after files have been compressed/edited(store the final files on another drive if you can, if not, a partition at the second half of the recording drive[as long as both are not used together while gaming, all will be good. Also note that editing/compression may be slower with this setup since it will be just one drive jumping back and forth to read/write] will keep finished files from cluttering up the space used by recording files). Drives are fastest at the start.
http://frapsforum.com/threads/variance-in-bitrate-between-game-titles-while-recording-with-fraps-why-it-matters.1302/

What to expect from Seagates newer cheaper drives. With the exception to a strange idle head parking noise, they seem to work just fine.

Uploaded to Imageshack

 

[HarUOne]

I am with this post. Just use the drive for Fraps only. As long as nothing else is writing to it at the same time, you will be doing sequential writing. Any modern hard drive should be able to handle this.

If it was a OS drive as well with all kinds of other things happening then getting a drive with better access times would make more sense.

The link below shows the bit rates of some videos recorded on Fraps with the worst case average being about 55 megabytes/sec. This should be ok with almost any current drive. For best results, always clear out the drive after files have been compressed/edited(store the final files on another drive if you can, if not, a partition at the second half of the recording drive[as long as both are not used together while gaming, all will be good. Also note that editing/compression may be slower with this setup since it will be just one drive jumping back and forth to read/write] will keep finished files from cluttering up the space used by recording files). Drives are fastest at the start.
http://frapsforum.com/threads/variance-in-bitrate-between-game-titles-while-recording-with-fraps-why-it-matters.1302/

Ah. I was always under the impression that it would be important for the drive to have high write speeds even if it's solely used for recording.

 

[nukemaster]

Well if you compare to the drives before PMR recording came out, new drives to have very fast write speeds. As long as the drive can keep up with the needed bit rate, it will work fine. Now when a drive is lets say used to load games and run tons of stuff, access times are what you want.

Access times are how fast the drive head can move from one location to another(and is improved with faster speeds like 10000 and 15000 rpm drives. Short stroking a 7200 rpm drive can also increase access time performance).

I remember when 40-50 megabytes/sec peak was VERY good, now it would be crap.

EDIT...Images of the past...The year 2004...

Now today...The access times are not accurate since the non pro version does NOT go past about half the drive, but gives you an idea of read speeds of modern drives.

 

[Ubrales]

What's your reasoning on this?

Based on traditional user feedback, and quality of the drives.

 

[tassietim]

this might be of interest to you, i found it so

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEGDgzlc7mA

 

[smjpl]

The HDD should have a minor effect on FRAPs and you should probably base your decision on other factors.

I am not too sure about this although I could be wrong. Maybe you guys can help as I am having a similar problem. When using fraps, I set fraps to 60fps @ 1080 full screen. Everything is fine until I play the video back and see the actual video frame rate is awful and no watchable. If I set it to a watchable the fps to the point where the recorded video is watchable (45 fps), I get a minor lag in the gameplay which makes it very hard to play well.

So recap: set fps high and all is well except vid quality poor. set fps low and vid quality is ok but gameplay is not.

Does this problem not have to be that the hdd isn't able to keep up with the amount of data being recorded? I am recording on a segate barracuda 250gb hdd that is only used for recording. OS on ssd. dxtory says hdd is writing at 80mb/s which seems low but it was recently formatted.

Any suggestions?
Thanks