# Fastest harddisk for gaming



## sp_1417 (Nov 13, 2013)

I need a 1TB/2TB HDD for my PC. I have no SSD and this new HDD will be my only drive in PC.
I need fast/reliable harddisk for gaming. Please suggest me good HDD around 100$.

I have found the following 3 HDD's within my budget.Which one is the best for gaming?
*WD RE4 WD1003FBYX *or *WD1002FAEX * or *WD20EZRX*


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## Fourstaff (Nov 13, 2013)

Consider Seagate Momentus. I can't remember off the top of my head which drive is which, but get the Black, its the fastest. The larger the drive the faster it is


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## Jack1n (Nov 13, 2013)

The differences are negligible,get the best price/capacity.


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## puma99dk| (Nov 13, 2013)

i use a Green myself for gaming a WD5000AACS 500gb drive also with data on and they ofc my SSD.

but if u want a performance drive and can't afford a ssd dedicated for gaming get a WD Black even a Green disk does it fine.

if u considering a WD RED plz keep in mind that your motherboard need to support it, since it's made for NAS.


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## sp_1417 (Nov 13, 2013)

puma99dk| said:


> i use a Green myself for gaming a WD5000AACS 500gb drive also with data on and they ofc my SSD.
> 
> but if u want a performance drive and can't afford a ssd dedicated for gaming get a WD Black even a Green disk does it fine.
> 
> if u considering a WD RED plz keep in mind that your motherboard need to support it, since it's made for NAS.



Is WD Black WD1002FAEX a good choice? or are there any better options in the same price range?


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## Jetster (Nov 13, 2013)

The Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 are faster then WD blacks. The 1 tb is the fastest. Check Toms charts


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## puma99dk| (Nov 13, 2013)

it should be a solid choice, it's a WD drive, and i am all crazy about them, even look at my Computer Specs 

some have had faulty Black drives and yes it's a performance drive so it happens, but it does to every hdd out there at some point.

u can read about the Black @ newegg: Western Digital WD Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 6...

i have brought some new drives myself in the past few years of WD only and they haven't failed on me yet, and i use them for storage and gaming meaning daily read and write.

in the past 31days i have had over 4TB in a mix of read and write of not more bcs my pc is on 24-7.


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## silapakorn (Nov 13, 2013)

Segate's new SSHD hybrid drive (light green) looks promising for gaming alone.












Comparing to WD Black it is a little bit faster, cooler, quieter, and most importantly, cheaper.
The only downside is that SSHD has 3 years warranty, while WD Black has 5.


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## Jetster (Nov 13, 2013)

Its $60 shipped after promo code EMCWWXN36

Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Ca...

Get two and raid them


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## puma99dk| (Nov 13, 2013)

silapakorn hybriddisk and Intel SmartCaching is like taking the files that are in use the most and transfers them to the SSD for faster access which in my eyes a bollocks bcs then i rather want to use a real SSD or a real HDD.

and what Jetster says raid also gives better speeds ^^


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## sp_1417 (Nov 13, 2013)

Jetster said:


> Its $60 shipped after promo code EMCWWXN36
> 
> Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Ca...
> 
> Get two and raid them



Guys I am from India.So I can't purchase from newegg or amazon


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## puma99dk| (Nov 13, 2013)

sp_1417 said:


> Guys I am from India.So I can't purchase from newegg or amazon



mine was for user reviews ^^


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## sp_1417 (Nov 13, 2013)

silapakorn said:


> Segate's new SSHD hybrid drive (light green) looks promising for gaming alone.
> 
> http://techreport.com/r.x/seagate-desktop-sshd/time-load-duke.gif
> 
> ...



are u speaking of this *ST1000DX001* model ?


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## HammerON (Nov 13, 2013)

sp_1417 said:


> Guys I am from India.So I can't purchase from newegg or amazon



Where do you shop then since you live in India? Local dealer, website...


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## sp_1417 (Nov 13, 2013)

HammerON said:


> Where do you shop then since you live in India? Local dealer, website...



local dealer or online(flipkart.com,snapdeal.com,croma.com and few other websites)


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## Jetster (Nov 13, 2013)

Put your location in your user details


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## Aquinus (Nov 13, 2013)

The RE4 drives are enterprise level SATA drives, as far as reliability, you can't go wrong with an RE4. They also tend to pump out 130MB/s per drive.


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## Deleted member 24505 (Nov 13, 2013)

Fourstaff said:


> Consider Seagate Momentus. I can't remember off the top of my head which drive is which, but get the Black, its the fastest. The larger the drive the faster it is



I'm using a 2.5" Seagate Momentus, and see no downside. It is quieter than a 3.5" and load times are still fine. The only game on my SSD is BF4.


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## sp_1417 (Nov 16, 2013)

Guys, I have purchased WD1002FAEX.But seeing no improvement in boot speed compared to the older seagate 1tb HDD. Also windows experience index is only 5.9 for HDD(same as older HDD).
Any ideas for this slow rating/performance ?


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## Dent1 (Nov 16, 2013)

sp_1417 said:


> Guys, I have purchased WD1002FAEX.But seeing no improvement in boot speed compared to the older seagate 1tb HDD. Also windows experience index is only 5.9 for HDD(same as older HDD).
> Any ideas for this slow rating/performance ?



Most mechanical drives average, minimum and maximum read/write and latency are about the same. The truth is you're always better off getting the cheapest brand with the most capacity. The only way to get more performance is via RAID which is inefficient or an SSD.

Also windows experience index doesn't mean anything.

I know this wasn't the answer you wanted to hear.


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## Aquinus (Nov 16, 2013)

sp_1417 said:


> Guys, I have purchased WD1002FAEX.But seeing no improvement in boot speed compared to the older seagate 1tb HDD. Also windows experience index is only 5.9 for HDD(same as older HDD).
> Any ideas for this slow rating/performance ?



You're not going to see night and day difference between most 7.2k RPM drives of the same size.


Dent1 said:


> The only way to get more performance is via RAID which is inefficient or an SSD.



This except, RAID can be helpful for redundancy and read speeds. It doesn't help latency but read bandwidth tends to be pretty nice. If you want good write bandwidth you really need a decent RAID controller, but more often than not, even RAID levels with parity (5 and 6) will have added read speeds as you add more drives because data is still striped across multiple disks, much like it is in RAID-0. The only difference is that you need to write extra parity data to ensure redundancy.

All in all, if you really want performance, get an SSD.


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## Deleted member 24505 (Nov 16, 2013)

You will not get higher than 5.9 with a mechanical drive.


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## qubit (Nov 16, 2013)

Only one drive in the PC? I hope you keep data backups somewhere or you're 100% guaranteed to lose it eventually.

Those WD Blacks are a good choice for performance, but there aren't too many bad drives out there now, whatever you pick.

You might like to check out www.storagereview.com

EDIT: Just seen you've bought a drive. Good choice.


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## sp_1417 (Nov 17, 2013)

My motherboard is gigabyte 990XA UD3. I am using the older sata cable instead of using the new sata(6 Gbps) cable. Changing the cable can help?


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## sp_1417 (Nov 17, 2013)

There are 3 Sata 6Gbps port. I am connecting to the Sata3[0] port. Is it ok?


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## Mussels (Nov 17, 2013)

puma99dk| said:


> i use a Green myself for gaming a WD5000AACS 500gb drive also with data on and they ofc my SSD.
> 
> but if u want a performance drive and can't afford a ssd dedicated for gaming get a WD Black even a Green disk does it fine.
> 
> if u considering a WD RED plz keep in mind that your motherboard need to support it, since it's made for NAS.



the greens will die fast for such a use. look up the head parking issues that can be solved with a DOS program called WDIDLE3 - short version is, green drives will commit suicide if used for anything other than a storage drive because they power off every 7 seconds (and then back on, and off, and on, and off...)


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## Aquinus (Nov 17, 2013)

sp_1417 said:


> My motherboard is gigabyte 990XA UD3. I am using the older sata cable instead of using the new sata(6 Gbps) cable. Changing the cable can help?



Doubtful, you would be having bigger issues if the cable was at fault.



sp_1417 said:


> http://www.gigabyte.in/fileupload/product/2/4434/7182_big.jpg
> There are 3 Sata 6Gbps port. I am connecting to the Sata3[0] port. Is it ok?



That's fine. The chipset is smart enough to match what ever revision of SATA the drive is running.


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## puma99dk| (Nov 17, 2013)

Mussels said:


> the greens will die fast for such a use. look up the head parking issues that can be solved with a DOS program called WDIDLE3 - short version is, green drives will commit suicide if used for anything other than a storage drive because they power off every 7 seconds (and then back on, and off, and on, and off...)



i guess my 500gb Green drive i have had for about 4years or so most love me bcs it keeps going and going on strong, been using it for gaming for about 3years now and ran it for OS for a year with no problems at all  and on top of that, it's decided into 3 partitions and it's has power 24-7...


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## Frick (Nov 17, 2013)

puma99dk| said:


> i guess my 500gb Green drive i have had for about 4years or so most love me bcs it keeps going and going on strong, been using it for gaming for about 3years now and ran it for OS for a year with no problems at all  and on top of that, it's decided into 3 partitions and it's has power 24-7...
> 
> http://puma99dk.tk/WDGreen500.jpg



I assume running as a primary drive it doesn't power down. The OS is always on, so..


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## puma99dk| (Nov 17, 2013)

Frick said:


> I assume running as a primary drive it doesn't power down. The OS is always on, so..



it haven't been used for OS for a long time, and it's running as a storage and gaming drive.


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## Mussels (Nov 17, 2013)

Frick said:


> I assume running as a primary drive it doesn't power down. The OS is always on, so..



it does. thats the problem. the drives power saving feature is really dumb, so it just powers down and then the OS wakes it right back up straight away. one of the commenters stated that by playing an MP3 song where the system idled for most of it, upped his count by 5 cycles.

It also affects WD blacks and blues, they just have the idle timer set higher (say 15 seconds instead of 7) so even at worst case, the problems half as bad. setting it to a 5 minute timer can actually speed up the drives since they arent stuttering on and off erratically.


http://koitsu.wordpress.com/2012/05/30/wd30ezrx-and-aggressive-head-parking/
http://www.storagereview.com/how_to...igital_2tb_caviar_green_wd20ears_with_wdidle3
http://www.ngohq.com/news/19805-critical-design-flaw-found-in-wd-caviar-green-hdds.html
http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=51401

more information in the above links, please read if you have (or intend to have) WD green drives as anything other than pure data storage.









puma99dk| said:


> i guess my 500gb Green drive i have had for about 4years or so most love me bcs it keeps going and going on strong, been using it for gaming for about 3years now and ran it for OS for a year with no problems at all  and on top of that, it's decided into 3 partitions and it's has power 24-7...
> 
> http://puma99dk.tk/WDGreen500.jpg



edit: yours is showing the raw hex value which screwed my reading of it over. converted to decimal yours is at 1071 of 300,000 - which is quite low. many people are seeing 500+ a day which means warranty voided in about a year and a half of normal use (worse in linux)


from one of the above linked threads is this:
All his drives work perfectly, but the problem is if he sent them for RMA, WD would refuse them since they have passed the warrantied period of 300,000 head parks.


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## Vario (Nov 17, 2013)

I own a velociraptor, I think its the 32mb cache one, haven't done any benchmarks but its my main windows and documents and etc drive, steam library on D:, the WD Caviar blue.  It boots in about 20 seconds.  
If I was to do over I'd do an SSD and a Caviar Black or Blue, depending on the price.  The 1tb Blues are frequently only $50 when you hunt around, I own 3 of them now, one per system.  I was running the VR alone (got it for $80 as a newegg promo thing) and then ran out of space due to steam so I got a 1tb extra drive for that stuff).


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## jboydgolfer (Nov 17, 2013)

I know they get a bad rap, but the seagate Barracuda has treated Me VERY good for a VERY long time. Currently I'm running a barracuda with an 8Mb cache, that has 25,000 power on hours on it, AND a broken sata plug on the back for probably 15,000 of those hours, and it has NEVER given Me a problem, OTHER than the sata data plug breaking. I use a WD blue as well, and it isn't Bad either. I think as long as You buy a drive that is suitable to your needs, and keep a reasonable expectation of performance, and Longevity, You WON'T be disappointed.


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## Vario (Nov 17, 2013)

jboydgolfer said:


> I know they get a bad rap, but the seagate Barracuda has treated Me VERY good for a VERY long time. Currently I'm running a barracuda with an 8Mb cache, that has 25,000 power on hours on it, AND a broken sata plug on the back for probably 15,000 of those hours, and it has NEVER given Me a problem, OTHER than the sata data plug breaking. I use a WD blue as well, and it isn't Bad either. I think as long as You buy a drive that is suitable to your needs, and keep a reasonable expectation of performance, and Longevity, You WON'T be disappointed.



Yeah I've had a cuda that my friend is running still, from 2006ish.  Best thing to do is aim a fan at the drive.  Keep it under 40*C year round and it probably will be fine.  I usually run 25*C winter 38 summer.


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## jihadjoe (Nov 17, 2013)

puma99dk| said:


> i guess my 500gb Green drive i have had for about 4years or so most love me bcs it keeps going and going on strong, been using it for gaming for about 3years now and ran it for OS for a year with no problems at all  and on top of that, it's decided into 3 partitions and it's has power 24-7...
> 
> http://puma99dk.tk/WDGreen500.jpg



The old greens are ok, it's the new greens that had the problem. The ones with EARS or EADS in the model code.


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## Vario (Nov 17, 2013)

Agreed skip the greens and just go with a 64mb cache blue.  $55 shipped for a 1tb usually, it just sorta rotates between the retailers but I've seen that price so many times I've bought it each time LOL.


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## Pill Monster (Nov 18, 2013)

Been using Seagate for years....only ever had 1 die. Never had a problem with WD either tbh...

Running 2 Intel and 6 Barracuda's atm ranging from 7200.8 to MOO2....all trouble free.  



The worst drivers ever made were Maxtor Quantum Fireball, closely followed by Hitachi.  Thank God they don't make those anymore. lol


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## Aquinus (Nov 18, 2013)

I've had WD drives fail on me but it's usually because they're DOA. WD has one of the best support teams (at least in the US,) for replacing drives and if you have the extra money where a hold can be put on your account, you can do an advance RMA and get a new drive in two days before you even send the old one back. At least that way you have a box to send the old one back in as well.


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