Best harddrives and SSD's?

[thetechnoobguy]

I've been using my crappy old 250gb on my new build for awhile now and am looking to upgrade by the end of October.

I've been looking at 10000RPM drives and they are quite expensive although I'm not sure if they're worth it over a 7200RPM drive?

The max harddrive space I need is 1TB, anywhere near 600 or 750gb would be fine. Even 500gb would be fine as I can always get another. As for SSD space, I'm not quite sure what is best. I was thinking get a 60gb ssd and just put windows on it, maybe frequently used programs like steam or my browser etc and get a 10000rpm drive for my games and stuff. 120gb could hold maybe 10-20 games along with my OS so that would be pretty good, although a 256gb ssd would hold almost all my games and then some but it's expensive.

Ultimately I am looking for performance over space. I can make do if it's little space but fast. I don't usually download a lot of things anyway so 1tb seems a bit extreme.

First I need to know what are some good 7200, 10000RPM hdds and SSD's that are the fastest / best for their money, that way I know what to look for so I can decide if I can afford it or not. Thanks.

Here are my specs:
PU: Zotac GeForce GTX 680 AMP 1.1GHZ 2GB 6.6GHZ GDDR5
CPU: i7 3770K
Motherboard: ASUS Sabertooth Z77
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit (oem)
RAM: 8GB DDR3 @ 1866ghz
CPU cooler: Coolermaster Hyper 212 Evo
PSU: 850w gold certified (for future SLI)

 

[Deleted member 217926]

Get the largest SSD you can afford. Prices have continued to drop with 256GB drives cheaper than I paid for my 120GB Vertex 2 two years ago. With the new Samsung 840 just released the 830 can be found as cheap as ~$80 for the 120GB model and ~$160 for the 256GB version. I like the Samsung drives and the Crucial M4 for reliability and speed.

You will not fit 10-20 games on a 120GB SSD. With Windows 7 Ultimate x64, Office 2007 and my other programs I have managed as many as 8 or 9 smaller games or like now I have 6. You have to leave 20% of an SSD free so TRIM can work correctly so that works out to 22GB on a 120GB SSD since the drive will be 111GB when it's formatted.

Don't waste money on a 10,000 RPM mechanical drive. The WD Blacks have a 5 year warranty and are very fast and I also like the Samsung ( Seagate bought their mechanical drive division so it may be called a Seagate ) Spinpoint F3. The Spinpoint is as fast as a WD Black and often cheaper.

 

[thetechnoobguy]

Thanks so much. The cheapest I could find the Samsung 256GB 2.5-inch SSD 830 Series was $206 and the cheapest I can get the Crucial M4 Micron C400 SSD 256GB is $192. I don't mind paying the extra $14 if you recommend the Samsung one over the Crucial one if it's better or faster.

So how many games could I fit on a 256gb ssd if I only put Windows on it? it least 10-20 right? Would I have to leave 51GB as free space (that seems like so much)?

I've been hearing people saying that SSD's aren't reliable and you'll have to go through all this hassle is that true? I've never used SSD's and what is Raid 0?

Also NCIX doesn't sell the Samsung Spinpoint F3 so I'd have to go with the WD black.

 

[Deleted member 217926]

Are you in the US? If so here is the 256GB Samsung 830 for $162.36 and free shipping.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/887983-REG//BI/865/KBID/1173

If you are in Canada ( Ncix has a US and a Canadian version ) then to me the Samsung is worth $14 more. Any more than that and the M4 starts looking good but for ~$20 I would get the Samsung.

Here is a good comparison.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-recommendation-benchmark,3269-6.html

You can easily get 10-20 games on it as well as Windows and any other programs you need. You would need to leave 20% of the drive free for it to run at it's best speed. You can fill an SSD up but it will slow it down considerably.


You really can't go wrong with a WD Black. Seagate also makes fine drives. I m not really someone who sticks to one brand or the other. I just like the 5 year warranty of the WD Blacks.

There was massive flooding in Thailand last year that made hard drive prices go crazy. Before that flooding the Spinpoint F3 was always a good $20 cheaper than comparable WD and Seagate drives so they were very hot sellers and they turned out to be great drives.