New Build HDD Planning Stage

[Source41]

Hello,

I am in the process of planning my build for when the X99 platform is released. With my last build I wasn't exactly smart about my HDD choices and ended up spending more money for less space because I wanted as the Jeremy from Top Gear would say "POWERRRRR". I have just a few questions about drive choices and would like some insight from those that have used these drives. The first question is based around my SSD choice. I am thinking at this point that I am going to go with either the Samsung 850 Pro or a M.2 SSD if the board I decide to get has that option. Now my SSD will be used for the OS obviously plus those few applications that I use that really benefit from that performance upgrade eg. Adobe Products, Intellij Idea and a couple of others. Now with that in mind would it be worth adopting the M.2 standard off the bat or wait a bit and go with the 850 Pro which I have heard great things about? I am coming from OCZ Vector and Vertex 4 Drives in my current PC.

The next major question which Is more important in my eyes is the the actual storage drives that I will be using. Like I said earlier my current PC is aimed more toward's Performance for every drive in that I went with the WD Black's for every storage drive I have. I was young and naive when I made that choice and am looking for a better more economical approach this time around. I still think that I will get one WD Black for my Games drive since the performance would be worth it. But for my media I am considering the WD 4tb Green as my drive of choice. I have nothing against other companies I just have experience with WD and have never had a drive failure (The oldest black in my current PC has been there since May 2009). My storage requirements are changing a bit with this PC because instead of just upgrading parts in my current PC I am doing a full build so will be able to use my old PC as a server/storage/stream PC but I still of course want to be able to store a decent amount locally. I will be using this new PC for gaming, video/audio editing, and programming mostly. I have heard that the WD Blue's are better for video editing so would it be a better idea to get say a Blue 1TB for the video editing drive and then the green for static media and files? I am of course open to other brand's of HDD's I just don't know nearly as much about them as I do WD.

Thanks for the Help

Source41

 

[Y0GI]

As far as M.2 is concerned, I would be sure that your new mobo supports that option, but I would stick with SATA III SSDs for your drive selection. M.2 is just too new for me, too expensive and not many choices. The M.2 page at Newegg only lists 6 M.2 drives: 3 Plextor and 3 Crucial: http://www.newegg.com/global/uk/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100044477%204121%20600488413&IsNodeId=1&name=M.2&SpeTabStoreType=270
The Crucial M.2 drives don't look any faster than conventional SSDs.

I have the Samsung 840 Pro in my system and I am very happy with its performance. I haven't read much about the 850 Pro, but if you can find some favorable reviews, I'd go for it. The Samsung warranty on the 850 Pro is 10 years, so Samsung seems to have a lot of faith in it.

For your secondary storage needs, I would avoid WD Green drives. IMO, they are just too slow and I cannot stand it when I have a HDD that has stopped rotating and I have to wait for it to spin up before I can access my data. I would get WD Black or Seagate Constellation HDDs.

Yogi

 

[Source41]

Thanks for the suggestions. I do think I am going to go with a standard format ssd at least until faster/better options are available. While I understand that the Green/Blue might be slower It does save money for something that in all honesty isn't going to be need faster read/write speeds and spin up's. I do love the black's that I have but I really only need that performance for my games drive and for just general storage seems a bit of an overkill especially considering a 2tb and above is getting expensive.