# Best 2.5-inch hard drive for storage and gaming?



## RodoGodo19 (May 31, 2017)

1TB *5,400 RPM*:

Seagate 1TB BarraCuda $54.78
Seagate 1TB Firecuda Gaming $65.50
WD Blue 1TB $56.89

1TB *7,200 RPM*:

WD Black 1TB $73.95
HGST Travelstar 7K1000 1TB $59.93

Which one is the best 2.5-inch hard drive for storage and gaming?.

The hard drive is for the Fractal Design Node 202 Mini ITX case.


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## Kursah (May 31, 2017)

I'd get the 7.2K RPM drives all day long, Hitachi preferably. Though WD blacks are good drives and highly regarded, every one I've owned has ended up reporting bad sectors. Though admittedly one is pushing 7 years old now, had bad sectors, RMA'd, the RMA'd drive had bad sectors about a year later...after warranty expired...still running to this day for non-important storage purposes.

If you don't need 1TB of space, I'd suggest an SSD though. It'll perform better for gaming. I picked up a WD Blue SSD 500GB for $140 a few weeks ago from Amazon.com, solid investment IMHO.


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## RodoGodo19 (May 31, 2017)

Kursah said:


> I'd get the 7.2K RPM drives all day long, Hitachi preferably. Though WD blacks are good drives and highly regarded, every one I've owned has ended up reporting bad sectors. Though admittedly one is pushing 7 years old now, had bad sectors, RMA'd, the RMA'd drive had bad sectors about a year later...after warranty expired...still running to this day for non-important storage purposes.
> 
> If you don't need 1TB of space, I'd suggest an SSD though. It'll perform better for gaming. I picked up a WD Blue SSD 500GB for $140 a few weeks ago from Amazon.com, solid investment IMHO.


I cannot afford a SSD for gaming right now, I need a drive for storage and gaming at the same time.


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## evernessince (May 31, 2017)

Kursah said:


> I'd get the 7.2K RPM drives all day long, Hitachi preferably. Though WD blacks are good drives and highly regarded, every one I've owned has ended up reporting bad sectors. Though admittedly one is pushing 7 years old now, had bad sectors, RMA'd, the RMA'd drive had bad sectors about a year later...after warranty expired...still running to this day for non-important storage purposes.
> 
> If you don't need 1TB of space, I'd suggest an SSD though. It'll perform better for gaming. I picked up a WD Blue SSD 500GB for $140 a few weeks ago from Amazon.com, solid investment IMHO.



It's possible that those bad sectors were on the disk to begin with.  As hard drive density increases the more and more the imperfections on a disk surface will come into play at smaller and smaller sizes.

I don't know what procedures you use to test new hard drives but I always fill up and erase a hard drive at least twice with data nonstop before I put it into actual operation.  If there are any mechanical errors or bad sectors on the disc this test always finds them.


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## Kursah (May 31, 2017)

evernessince said:


> It's possible that those bad sectors were on the disk to begin with.  As hard drive density increases the more and more the imperfections on a disk surface will come into play at smaller and smaller sizes.
> 
> I don't know what procedures you use to test new hard drives but I always fill up and erase a hard drive at least twice with data nonstop before I put it into actual operation.  If there are any mechanical errors or bad sectors on the disc this test always finds them.



All physical platter drives have bad sectors...it's the nature of their design and manufacturing, it isn't until a specified amount of them has been used that the logic board reports any of them to the system that you should be concerned with it though, because until it is reported users are none-the-wiser and it really doesn't matter because there's enough spare space to use up. Platter drives have a certain amount of spare sectors to use before it reports that can be considered a buffer zone, this amount can vary between platter count, vendor, drive size, batch, etc.

@RGT, err... @RodoGodo19 , I stand by my original statement. Hitachi 1TB 7.2K RPM is what I would choose.


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## RodoGodo19 (May 31, 2017)

Kursah said:


> All physical platter drives have bad sectors...it's the nature of their design and manufacturing, it isn't until a specified amount of them has been used that the logic board reports any of them to the system that you should be concerned with it though, because until it is reported users are none-the-wiser and it really doesn't matter because there's enough spare space to use up. Platter drives have a certain amount of spare sectors to use before it reports that can be considered a buffer zone, this amount can vary between platter count, vendor, drive size, batch, etc.
> 
> @RGT, err... @RodoGodo19 , I stand by my original statement. Hitachi 1TB 7.2K RPM is what I would choose.


7,200 2.5" is noticeably faster than 5,400? (loading movies, photos, games)


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## Kursah (Jun 1, 2017)

Response time is faster in many cases, power consumption will be a little bit higher...but that shouldn't matter. 5.4k drives are considered "eco" or "economy" drives IMHO. From my experience throughput can be lower and response rates are always lower. The biggest places you'll notice it is swapping between storage locations, loading large amounts of data (games, programs), booting the OS.

There's a reason higher speed drives are used in data stores and servers where throughput and response are important. Get those platters spinning faster, get your data faster. Now if we could get 15K drives more economically...but I guess with solid state technology hopefully we won't have to care sooner than later.


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## RodoGodo19 (Jun 1, 2017)

Kursah said:


> Response time is faster in many cases, power consumption will be a little bit higher...but that shouldn't matter. 5.4k drives are considered "eco" or "economy" drives IMHO. From my experience throughput can be lower and response rates are always lower. The biggest places you'll notice it is swapping between storage locations, loading large amounts of data (games, programs), booting the OS.
> 
> There's a reason higher speed drives are used in data stores and servers where throughput and response are important. Get those platters spinning faster, get your data faster. Now if we could get 15K drives more economically...but I guess with solid state technology hopefully we won't have to care sooner than later.


what about a SSHD for a few dollars more?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M1NHCZT/?tag=tec06d-20


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## Kursah (Jun 1, 2017)

Nah..if it were the same price I'd say yes or closer to $70 even. But I have several at home and can't tell the difference honestly. Sure the OS might load a second or two faster if that, sure a game you open every day might open a touch faster...but honestly unless you're constantly timing it, you'd never notice.

I see even with these newer generation SSHD's they still run 8GB SSD caches...now if they ran 64GB that'd make more of a difference that we'd notice. I know there is a WD drive that has a 120GB SSD and 1TB HDD in one housing, but that's not quite the same iirc.

Though it might help compensate a little bit for that 5.4k speed..maaayyyyybe...my experiences with SSHD's have been fairly lackluster and the gains not worth an extra $20+.   But the 5yr warranty is sure a nice thing to see and would be a strong factor in the decision IMHO. 3-5 is a good range to go for unless you trust the brand that may have a shorter warranty.


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## R-T-B (Jun 1, 2017)

+1 For the HGST Travelstar 7.2k rpm drive.


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## evernessince (Jun 1, 2017)

Kursah said:


> All physical platter drives have bad sectors...it's the nature of their design and manufacturing, it isn't until a specified amount of them has been used that the logic board reports any of them to the system that you should be concerned with it though, because until it is reported users are none-the-wiser and it really doesn't matter because there's enough spare space to use up. Platter drives have a certain amount of spare sectors to use before it reports that can be considered a buffer zone, this amount can vary between platter count, vendor, drive size, batch, etc.
> 
> @RGT, err... @RodoGodo19 , I stand by my original statement. Hitachi 1TB 7.2K RPM is what I would choose.



I'm talking about the uncorrectable errors.  These can turn into real issues quickly as it's likely for them to spread.


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## FireFox (Jun 1, 2017)

RodoGodo19 said:


> WD Black 1TB $73.95



No doubts.

I have one for my Games and so far it works pretty good.


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## JunkBear (Jun 1, 2017)

The Firecuda has 128megs cache and is considered hybride in memory.


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## Kursah (Jun 1, 2017)

evernessince said:


> I'm talking about the uncorrectable errors.  These can turn into real issues quickly as it's likely for them to spread.



So am I. Bad sectors don't get repaired, they get flagged and recoverable data gets moved and re-indexed...when that buffer runs out, your data loss risk is substantially increased.

So that this train stays on topic for the OP, you have a recommendation from their list?

@JunkBear 128MB cache is pretty good for cache, not as frequent as 64MB. And from what I see on the product page it appears the Barracuda is 128MB, then there's the basic FireCuda Gaming 1TB that has 64MB cache and 8GB SSD cache and the FireCuda Gaming 2TB that has 64MB cache and 8GB SSD cache. Where do you see a FireCuda 2.5" with 128MB cache? Even if a 5.4K drive had 128MB cache, I'd still choose a 7.2K 64MB Hitachi over it based on my experience with various drives. In this comparison, that it's also at a good price point.


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## JunkBear (Jun 1, 2017)

Kursah said:


> So am I. Bad sectors don't get repaired, they get flagged and recoverable data gets moved and re-indexed...when that buffer runs out, your data loss risk is substantially increased.
> 
> So that this train stays on topic for the OP, you have a recommendation from their list?
> 
> @JunkBear 128MB cache is pretty good for cache, not as frequent as 64MB. And from what I see on the product page it appears the Barracuda is 128MB, then there's the basic FireCuda Gaming 1TB that has 64MB cache and 8GB SSD cache and the FireCuda Gaming 2TB that has 64MB cache and 8GB SSD cache. Where do you see a FireCuda 2.5" with 128MB cache? Even if a 5.4K drive had 128MB cache, I'd still choose a 7.2K 64MB Hitachi over it based on my experience with various drives. In this comparison, that it's also at a good price point.




Instead of talking for nothing I made research. https://www.amazon.ca/Seagate-Firecuda-2-5-Inch-Internal-ST1000LX015/dp/B01LWRTRZU


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## Komshija (Jun 1, 2017)

Toshiba H200 or HGST Travelstar that you mentioned.


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## Mussels (Jun 1, 2017)

SSD is the best, clearly.


Firecuda is a *7,200RPM* hybrid drive, so that'd be my pick of that list (64MB cache, 8GB NAND SSD)

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822178995


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## Upgrayedd (Jun 1, 2017)

Doesn't Toshiba own HGST's HDD portion now and WD owns the SSD portion of HGST? This always made me think HGST drives were just Toshiba drives but I also forget my age and what kind of car I drive sometimes LOL.


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## R-T-B (Jun 1, 2017)

IcePick said:


> Doesn't Toshiba own HGST's HDD portion now and WD owns the SSD portion of HGST? This always made me think HGST drives were just Toshiba drives but I also forget my age and what kind of car I drive sometimes LOL.



It's confusing as heck, but Toshiba and Western Digital both split HGSTs 3.5" "Deskstar" line.  HGST Ultrastar and Travelstar are exclusively owned by WD.


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## RodoGodo19 (Jun 1, 2017)

Mussels said:


> SSD is the best, clearly.
> 
> 
> Firecuda is a *7,200RPM* hybrid drive, so that'd be my pick of that list (64MB cache, 8GB NAND SSD)
> ...



firecuda is 5,400 I think...


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## Mussels (Jun 1, 2017)

RodoGodo19 said:


> firecuda is 5,400 I think...



the link i posted shows 7,200

"Seagate FireCuda Gaming SSHD 1TB 7200 RPM "


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## RodoGodo19 (Jun 1, 2017)

Mussels said:


> the link i posted shows 7,200
> 
> "Seagate FireCuda Gaming SSHD 1TB 7200 RPM "


but the 2TB model is not 7,200, isn't?


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## Kursah (Jun 1, 2017)

JunkBear said:


> Instead of talking for nothing I made research. https://www.amazon.ca/Seagate-Firecuda-2-5-Inch-Internal-ST1000LX015/dp/B01LWRTRZU



Still a *5.4K drive* according to the MFG (a better source than Amazon for authoritative answers) as I said before. 128MB cache isn't going to fix that and make it truly compete with a 7.2K drive. 

The 7.2K RPM SSHD that @Mussels points out would be the better buy in this case. 



RodoGodo19 said:


> but the 2TB model is not 7,200, isn't?



Here's the *Seagate manual* for the drive, states both 1TB and 2TB are 7.2K RPM drives.


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## RodoGodo19 (Jun 1, 2017)

Kursah said:


> Still a *5.4K drive* according to the MFG (a better source than Amazon for authoritative answers) as I said before. 128MB cache isn't going to fix that and make it truly compete with a 7.2K drive.
> 
> The 7.2K RPM SSHD that @Mussels points out would be the better buy in this case.
> 
> ...


you are wrong, you are missing something very important.
The models mentioned in the manual is for 3.5-inch hard drives and I'm looking at 2.5-inch hard drives.

2.5" https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M1NHCZT/?tag=tec06d-20

they are 5,400rpm


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## Kursah (Jun 1, 2017)

RodoGodo19 said:


> you are wrong, you are missing something very important.
> The models mentioned in the manual is for 3.5-inch hard drives and I'm looking at 2.5-inch hard drives.
> 
> 2.5" https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M1NHCZT/?tag=tec06d-20
> ...



Yep it seems that the one I looked at based on the linked part numbers above, ST1000DX002 and ST2000DX002, I missed that fact as they are indeed 3.5" 7.2K drives. Easier to cram better platter performance in a larger package. Too bad you can't make one fit in that tiny case. 

Looks like the HGST is still the winner here in my eyes, or if it were my system that's what I'd buy and be done with it.


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## P4-630 (Jun 1, 2017)

I'd say take the HGST.
I own a 750GB 2.5" HGST one, it's very quiet, doesn't get too hot, a good drive IMO.


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## peche (Jun 1, 2017)

1TB for gaming, well as Kursah said, its better to get a cheap and reliable 250/500GB SSD for that, in this moment im running a 320GB HDD for games only, 2TB Drive for storage, music and personal stuff, a 64GB SSD handles my OS and most used programs such as Adobe Suite for example, 

im saving some pennies for a 500Gb regular SSD for Games so i could take out my opld 320GB HDD, t

Regards,


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## evernessince (Jun 4, 2017)

Kursah said:


> So am I. Bad sectors don't get repaired, they get flagged and recoverable data gets moved and re-indexed...when that buffer runs out, your data loss risk is substantially increased.
> 
> So that this train stays on topic for the OP, you have a recommendation from their list?
> 
> @JunkBear 128MB cache is pretty good for cache, not as frequent as 64MB. And from what I see on the product page it appears the Barracuda is 128MB, then there's the basic FireCuda Gaming 1TB that has 64MB cache and 8GB SSD cache and the FireCuda Gaming 2TB that has 64MB cache and 8GB SSD cache. Where do you see a FireCuda 2.5" with 128MB cache? Even if a 5.4K drive had 128MB cache, I'd still choose a 7.2K 64MB Hitachi over it based on my experience with various drives. In this comparison, that it's also at a good price point.



No Bad sectors and uncorrectable errors and two different things

"Generally the Reported Uncorrectable Errors reflect problems during data transfer between the hard disk itself and the disk controller (motherboard or the add-on card you use). This is slightly similar to the data communication errors but in some cases there may be a bit different."

I'm not talking about the relocated rector count, which is what you described.


Also on the recommendation of a hard drive for gaming, you want the highest platter density you can find at the highest RPM with the largest cache size.  Firmware also plays a role

The Toshiba P300 1TB and the ST1000DM010 are good choice, although I'd lean towards the toshiba because they have better quality control.


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## Vya Domus (Jun 4, 2017)

evernessince said:


> No Bad sectors and uncorrectable errors and two different things
> 
> "Generally the Reported Uncorrectable Errors reflect problems during data transfer between the hard disk itself and the disk controller (motherboard or the add-on card you use). This is slightly similar to the data communication errors but in some cases there may be a bit different."
> 
> ...



ST1000DM010 , not the old ones though I had 2 of them fail in less than a year.


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## DeathtoGnomes (Jun 4, 2017)

I assume money is a huge factor here, so I suggest looking to refurbished products or even second hand ("previously used" ) HDDs. Granted you take a bigger risk of them not lasting long but you can also "luck out" and get more than you bargained for. I found a 1TB external drive with not cords at a yard sale for $15 and installed it on my system. That being said, I would consider the amount of games you have, or want, installed and how much you play any particular one and seriously consider a smaller SSD dedicated to your gaming. 120-250GB range can be found for that same $73 or less.


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